Eagle Eye
by o Mischief Managed
Summary: AU. Sequel to Fire at Will. Percy and Annabeth have fled the country to escape Zeus' wrath. But when an assassin sent by the head of crime-ring Olympus lands Percy in the hospital, Annabeth and Thalia decide to return home to eliminate Zeus once and for all. With the help of allies old and new, Annabeth once again finds herself hunting down the most powerful criminal in the U.S.
1. Prologue

**GUESS WHAT, EVERYBODY? I'M BAAAACK!**

**Yup, I finished writing my other chapter-fic, which means it's finally time to get this voyage underway! Now, a warning before you scroll down:**

***ahem* YOU _MUST_ READ "FIRE AT WILL" BEFORE PROCEEDING. This is a direct sequel and as it's an AU, you really won't understand at ALL unless you've read FAW. I mean it. Trust me, though, it's a fun read. You won't regret it ;)**

**That being said, welcome to _Fire at Will_'s sequel, _Eagle Eye!_ I know it's been a longer wait than I was anticipating, but it's here and I'm gonna try my darndest to make it worth the wait. It's gonna be another 20 chapters, just like FAW, and they'll vary in length, probably once again getting longer near the end. Expect just as much action, drama, and excitement, though, because I've got something of an addiction to those things.**

**Also, the song lyrics I'll be sticking at the openings are from "Save Yourself, I'll Hold Them Back" by My Chemical Romance. The sound and words fit the tone of this story to a T.**

**So how about a bit of action to start us off, huh? Heeeeeere we go!**

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I hope you're ready for a **firefight** / 'Cause the _devil's_ got your number tonight

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Percy Jackson woke in the middle of the night with a knife inches from his throat.

He should have seen it coming. His life had been far too quiet and easy for the past fourteen months since he'd moved to London to escape his power-hungry uncle. After all, fate had never been particularly kind to him before. Why should he have any reason to think it would start now? Ever since he'd joined his father's organization when he was fifteen, he'd been used to danger. Being one of the heirs to the largest criminal organization in the United States, it basically came with the territory. But no amount of training or combat practice could prepare someone for fighting off a black-clad, knife-wielding intruder in a dark room hours past midnight while half-asleep.

No, in that situation, you pretty much had to wing it.

It was the shift in pressure on the bed that woke him up. His eyes opened halfway at the disturbance, just enough to see the reflective flash of the blade as it neared his neck. The shock jolted his mind to attention like a bucket of water had been dumped on his head and he threw up his arms to brace the attack, grabbing the arm wielding the knife with both hands and holding it back with what little strength sleep hadn't taken from his limbs.

Gritting his teeth as the intruder grappled against him, Percy frantically kicked at the body lying beside him—the sleeping form of his former-CIA-assassin fiancée. "Annabeth!" he called hoarsely, his voice rough with sleep. "_Wake up!_"

Annabeth gave a low groan and rolled toward him, reaching up to rub her eyes. "Why, what's—?" Her yawn turned into a gasp and she sat bolt upright, finally getting a look at the situation at hand.

"Help me!" Percy yelled, feeling the tip of the knife poke at his skin. He forced his knee up into the intruder's stomach, but the person only grunted and shoved harder, and it was all he could do to keep from being beheaded.

Annabeth blinked and shook her head before lunging for the intruder without so much as a word. She rammed her shoulder into his side and he toppled over the side of the bed with a surprised shout and a dull _thud_. Percy released the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and sat up, rubbing the thin, shallow slice on his neck that the attacker's knife had carved as he fell.

The man was on his feet almost immediately, the narrow streak of moonlight from the bedroom window finally allowing Percy and Annabeth to get a better look at him. His face was inconspicuous—brown hair, clean-shaven, probably in his late twenties. He was dressed all in black, likely the better to hide in the shadows of the night. Percy didn't recognize his face, but that didn't mean much. He could be anyone.

Anyone on a mission to kill him, anyway.

The intruder didn't waste any time. He darted toward the bed again, brandishing his hunting knife with practiced ease and speed. Percy and Annabeth dodged to either side to avoid being gutted. Annabeth fell off the foot of the bed with a _thump_ and Percy's legs tangled in the sheets as the intruder dove between them. He ignored Annabeth and twisted around, reaching for Percy with his free hand. Clucking his tongue with a scowl, Percy ducked the grab and quickly disentangled himself from the sheet, jumping off the bed and to his feet. As soon as he'd done so, however, the man took the chance to tackle him, dragging him to the ground and leaning over him. Percy ducked another jab of the knife and grabbed the attacker's arm, pushing it out from under him and pulling him to his side on the floor. He grabbed the man's right wrist—the one holding the blade—and forced it away from him. The intruder kicked him hard in the stomach and his grip faltered as the wind was swept from his lungs.

As soon as the man rose to his knees, Annabeth wrapped both arms around his neck from behind in a tight chokehold. Immediately, he reached his hands up and the blade of his knife grazed her upper right arm. She gasped and her grip seemed to loosen, allowing the intruder to elbow her in the stomach and twist around, tackling her and throwing her back onto the bed. She shoved him to the side and they rolled over one another until he succeeded in knocking her off the foot of the bed and onto the floor.

With a growl, Percy climbed to his feet and went after the man, grabbing his shoulder and pulling him around in time to throw a right hook at his jaw. The attacker stumbled back against the bed and Percy grabbed his forearm, twisting it until the knife dropped from his grip and earning a shallow slice across the wrist in return. The assassin hooked his boot around Percy's ankle and pulled, causing him to stumble. The man then pushed forward and knocked them both to the ground, his hands wrapping tightly around Percy's throat.

All his muscles seemed to tighten painfully as his lungs tried and failed to draw breath. He reached up and yanked on the collar of the intruder's jacket, trying to distract him, but the grip around his neck only tightened. He could feel the strength seeping out of him like water through a dam, blood roaring in his ears and his head pounding. He gritted his teeth and used what force he had left to drive his knee into the attacker's gut, eliciting a grunt of pain as he loosened his hold just a bit.

Then suddenly a loud _crash_ sounded and shards of glass rained down from above. The intruder swore loudly and jerked away, pulling his hands from Percy's throat and stumbling backward unsteadily. Percy gasped and coughed as air rushed into his lungs, squeezing his eyes shut. When he opened them, he saw the assassin turn in his crouch and lunge for Annabeth's legs. She was standing over them, still holding the remains of the lamp she'd smashed against the man's back, and she leapt backward to avoid being tackled. As she did so, the man jumped to his feet and hit her under the chin with a strong uppercut, knocking her back to the floor.

The attacker advanced on Annabeth, and when Percy noticed that the dagger was back in his hand a powerful sense of anger flooded through him. "Annabeth!" he called, hoping to get her attention so she'd get out of the way. Not willing to count only on that, however, he jumped up from the floor and dashed forward, hands curling into fists. He latched onto the assassin's shoulder and yanked him backward, ready to aim another right hook to his face which hopefully would knock him out, but the man turned quickly and drove a fist into Percy's stomach before he got the chance.

Immediately a searing pain tore through him, almost like he'd been injected with hot lava. His muscles tightened, freezing his body in place like a statue, and his train of thought seemed so slow to a crawl. The only coherent thought that would form was that no punch could ever hurt that much.

A dark, satisfied smile—almost a sneer—appeared on the man's face. He laughed a low snicker and jerked his arm backward. Another white-hot flash of pain sliced through Percy's body and he screamed through tightly-gritted teeth, feeling all the tension in his muscles release at once. Then the attacker reached out, giving Percy a light backward shove. He stumbled, his legs feeling suddenly weak, and staggered back against the dresser behind him. His gaze shifted downward and a horrible understanding filled his mind, causing his throat to tighten in dread. The blade of the assassin's hunting knife was dripping red—coated in the same blood quickly soaking Percy's shirt from the stab wound in his stomach.

"Percy!" Annabeth frantically called his name from across the room. He looked up and squinted through the blackness edging across his vision to see the intruder back quickly toward the open window. Annabeth shot the man an anxious glance, but instead of moving toward him she rushed to her fiancé's side.

Taking his chance, the intruder climbed onto the windowsill, turning back to give them one last triumphant smirk. "Zeus sends his regards," he said smugly. Then he leapt out the window and was gone.

A cold, heavy weight seemed to press down on Percy at those words. _Zeus_, he thought as he slid to the floor, his back against the dresser. He should have known his uncle wouldn't let him go—that it would only be a matter of time before he found him and sent someone to eliminate him. He had no intentions of usurping his uncle's claim to the organization, but still Zeke saw him as a liability. And that made him dangerous—a threat that had to be dealt with in whatever way possible. He'd thought he was safe, that he'd escaped his uncle's wrath. But he should have known better. There was no escaping a man as powerful as Ezekiel Grace.

"Hang on, okay?" Annabeth was saying, her voice shaking just as badly as her hands as she pressed them over the open stab wound on his abdomen, trying to stem the blood flow and only staining her fingers red in the process. "I'm gonna call for help. Just hang on. Oh, God…"

The world seemed to be moving in slow-motion. As she leaned over him, he looked up at her, wishing he could tell her that everything would be fine. But no matter how hard he tried to say the words, his voice refused to work properly, and all that came out was a weak, breathless, "Don't…" He tried to force a smile, but even the muscles in his face had drained of strength and will, and the corner of his mouth turned up just barely before falling lax.

Percy watched as tears filled Annabeth's eyes—the beautiful gray eyes that could never quite conceal what emotions were trapped behind them. But now, he would have given anything not to see through them, because in her eyes all he saw was desperation and loss, a terrible, anxious sadness that no amount of acting prowess could disguise. And it only worsened his own hurt in return, to see the woman he loved in so much pain.

And all because of Ezekiel Grace.

A tiny spark of anger ignited within Percy at the thought of his uncle. His lungs tightened painfully, every breath a new dagger in his body. His senses had dulled, black spots had begun to swim across his vision, and though he desperately wanted to move he couldn't make his muscles comply. He held onto that anger, using it as an anchor and making a futile, impossible promise that one day Zeke would pay for everything he'd done. But soon, even that faded into smoke, leaving his mind numb and empty.

Percy was distantly aware of Annabeth calling his name, but his eyelids felt heavy and little by little the world around him was fading from existence. His last thought before the darkness seeped in over it all was that at least she was safe—because anymore, that was all that mattered.

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**Before you say anything, do NOT worry. He's not gonna die. I switch back and forth erratically between Percy and Annabeth's POV in this, so the focus is almost evenly split.**

**That being said, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Excited for this story? Tired of my irritating tirades? Want me to shut the heck up and get writing? You're probably right about that one. I've got a doc open right behind this window on my computer with the first like third of Chapter 3 written up, haha.**

**So how about a review? Let me know you're with me? It's gonna be another wild ride, kiddies, that's for dang sure.**

**Later days!**

**-oMM**


	2. Glass

**Wow, guys, 30 reviews and 75 follows already? Pretty awesome for one chapter :D I'm really glad to hear you're excited about this. I sure as heck am :D Seriously, I just finished writing chapter 4 and it's AWESOME. Super exciting, I think you guys are gonna love it! :D ...Yeah, I get dumbly excited about my own stuff... Heh...**

**Also, I didn't mention this in my last note, but there're gonna be some Heroes of Olympus characters in this. The last one was strictly characters from the first series, but I'm expanding a little bit with this one. I've got... I think it's 4 from the new series? Something like that. The first one shows up next chapter.**

**This chapter's less exciting than the last, but hey - least we're rolling, right? Thanks, everybody! Enjoy!**

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They say we're _never leavin'_ this place **alive**

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Annabeth had never really liked hospitals.

That wasn't to say she was a stranger to them. On the contrary, she'd spent considerable time in medical care due to the nature of her former line of work. But there was something about them that made her feel like an outsider, like she didn't fit in. For so long, she'd been used to a life of darkness and danger, secrets and lies. The bright lights and the relaxing quiet of hospitals just weren't for her. Inside them, she felt different. Exposed. Vulnerable.

Even now, over a year after leaving her old, fast-paced life behind, that lingering discomfort remained. She stood still, her muscles growing tense every time she heard footsteps and refusing to relax until they walked past her door and continued down the hall. It was just after five in the morning on the eleventh of January and general activity at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel was low—which was good because as far as Annabeth was concerned, the fewer distractions existed at the moment the better.

Swallowing hard past the heavy lump in her throat, Annabeth numbly lifted a hand and placed it against the wide, glass window in the observation room, eyes peering through the clear surface and wishing it wasn't there. It was the only thing separating her from her fiancé, who was lying in a bed on the opposite side, sound asleep. She'd been told half an hour ago by the doctors that though the surgery had been a success and that his life wasn't in immediate danger, their predictions were still inconclusive. She didn't know exactly what that meant, but she was afraid to ask. She'd called an ambulance immediately after the assassin had disappeared, but if it hadn't been enough—if there was nothing they could do—if she had to lose him… She didn't even want to consider it.

Absently Annabeth tapped her index finger on the glass, breathing out slowly. She told herself to stay calm. She'd always prided herself in her level-headed assuredness, something she needed to make use of now. Panicking or imagining the worst would get her nowhere.

Suddenly the door to her observation room opened from the outside and her gaze snapped toward it, body tensing. But she relaxed immediately upon recognizing the face that rounded the corner.

"You made it," she said, her voice surprisingly low and whispery as though she'd made an unconscious attempt to copy the silence of the hospital.

Thalia Grace didn't respond. She didn't even smile, which was distinctly unlike her. Her blue eyes were worried and intense as she snapped the door closed and stepped forward, wrapping Annabeth in a tight hug that she returned without even a thought of hesitation.

"How is he?" Thalia asked in a tight voice when they separated and both girls turned toward the wide window. Annabeth noticed that Thalia was dressed in jeans, a plain T-shirt, and a hooded jacket, with her hair unstyled and no makeup on her face. She must have dressed hurriedly and left her flat within minutes after Annabeth had called.

"Alright for now," Annabeth responded to the question, crossing her arms and feeling as though a chill had passed by, even though the air was still. "He came out of surgery okay and they aren't expecting any complications, but no one seemed to know for sure. As for when he'll wake up, that's anyone's guess." It was irritating how hollow and emotionless her voice sounded, as though she were reading the morning news.

Thalia looked carefully around the room, though it was empty save for the two of them. "Annabeth, what happened?" she asked in a hushed tone.

Annabeth was quiet for a long minute, watching the heart monitor in the next room over and mentally replaying the night in her mind. Somehow, it still didn't seem real. They'd been free and happy for so long. They were planning to get married later that year. How could this have happened now?

"I thought we were safe," she finally whispered.

Thalia frowned, though her eyes widened just barely like she'd understood. "What do you mean?"

Annabeth turned and met her friend's gaze. "He found us," she told her. "An assassin broke into our place a few hours ago. We tried to fight him off, but…" She sighed and shook her head. "I should've been able to stop him. This should never have happened."

"Annabeth, this wasn't your fault," Thalia argued, hands clenching into fists and her expression seeming to harden. "You know for sure it was him?"

"The guy only said one thing," Annabeth replied gravely. "'Zeus sends his regards.'"

Thalia swore under her breath, her jaw tightening. Annabeth knew Thalia had never gotten along with her father, Ezekiel Grace—not since she'd left the organization, anyway—but hearing this sort of news still had to be difficult. "I can't believe this," she growled. Her stony gaze slid toward the glass again, staring through it at her unconscious cousin. "His own family. How could he…?"

Annabeth could still feel the stained traces of tears on her face, but her eyes had long since dried. A tiny anger had sparked insider her like a pilot light, and talking about Zeke and thinking of everything he'd put her and Percy through had a way of fanning the flames.

"I wish he could pay for this," she said quietly. "For all of this. Everything he's done to you, to Percy, to me… I've had enough."

Thalia's dark eyebrows drew together. She chewed the inside of her lip in apparent thought, making the black lightning bolt tattooed on her cheekbone shift and bend. After a heavy silence, she said with conviction, "So let's make him pay."

Annabeth looked at her sharply. "What?"

"You're right," Thalia said with a curt nod. "He can't get away with this, not this time. But no one else is about to stand up to him, which means it's down to us. You and me." She took a deep breath and turned away from the window. "Look, when he finds out his assassin failed, he'll act again. So I say we go to the States and hunt him down now, while he isn't expecting it—before he has a chance for a second strike."

"It's a nice idea," Annabeth admitted, "but how could we? The amount of planning it would take… We'd need a place to stay, for one thing. And equipment, transportation—do we even know where to find him?"

"Oh, don't worry about finding him," Thalia insisted. She shot a glance over her shoulder and somehow Annabeth knew that that was all she was going to get at the moment. "And as for a place to stay, well… I've got a friend I grew up with back home. I keep in touch with her every now and then; she usually comes to my concerts when we tour in the U.S. Nobody knew it—not my father, not even Percy—but I told her everything. She knew all about the organization when we were kids, about my role in it. And she kept my secrets. Always. I know she'd do it again."

Annabeth unconsciously narrowed her eyes. "You really think so?"

Thalia nodded grimly. "Yeah, I do. Plus, I might be able to get in touch with a couple of my old Olympus contacts for anything else we might need. It'd risk alerting Zeke, but if we move quickly we could probably sneak under the radar before it hits his ears."

"Are you sure about this?" Annabeth asked carefully, adrenaline already starting to rush in her veins at the thought of going after the central head of Olympus. "He's your father."

"Not anymore. He hasn't spoken to me since the day I left. As far as he's concerned, I don't exist. No, my real family is you guys, and he's threatening that. I'm with you—he has to pay."

The corner of Annabeth's mouth twitched in a tiny smile as she realized that Thalia really was serious. For years her only goal had been Olympus—taking them down and making them pay for what they did to her. Only a year ago, she'd thought she'd given up that goal after realizing that Olympus wasn't made up of the terrible people she'd always thought. Some of them had even become good friends—and more, in Percy's case. But Ezekiel Grace—he was different. If any one person in Olympus personified the image she'd used to define them for so long, it was codename Zeus himself. She decided she didn't care what happened to the organization anymore, but Zeke was standing between her and happiness. He'd taken the security she'd barely begun to feel and broken it—shattered it like glass into a million tiny pieces. And she would break him for it in return, whatever it took.

"Alright," she agreed. "I'm in. Let's do it."

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**Yes! Hey, want another update? Drop a review! The more I get, the quicker I'll throw up the next chapter. Trust me, guys, you want to get to 4. It's awesome ;)**

**Thanks, gang! Later days!**

**-oMM**


	3. Nine

**Hey gang! Just saying, I don't know if all updates will be as fast as we're going now, but I'm moving along well with writing and I'm still residually excited to have this started finally so it'll probably keep up two-per-week for at least a couple more weeks. Later once the chapters get longer and take me more time to write I'm sure we'll see some spacing out.**

**Anyway, thanks bunches for all the reviews! That's another factor, as always, that prompts me to update more quickly. When I know people are waiting, I have more motivation to kick it into gear :D**

**Still setting up for now. Enjoy!**

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But if you sing _these words_ we'll never **die**

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Annabeth stared at the mobile phone in her hand, mentally working herself up to making the call.

Almost a day had passed since she and Thalia had made the dangerous decision to go after Ezekiel Grace. Before they could leave for the U.S., though, Annabeth had a job to do—Thalia hadn't seen this friend of hers in quite a while and didn't know where she was currently living, and it was up to Annabeth and her CIA history to find her. They both knew that calling to explain their plans was entirely too risky, which meant that they'd have no other choice but to show up on her doorstep and hope she agreed to help them. Thalia was confident that it would work out, though, so Annabeth kept her nervous doubts to herself. She trusted Thalia, and if Thalia trusted her friend, then that was good enough for her.

She wasn't afraid to make the call she'd been planning for selfish reasons. Moreover, she had to be sure she wasn't endangering the person on the other end. It had been a while since they'd spoken, but as long as the contact didn't result in the person's getting arrested, she was confident they could help her.

A few minutes past one in the morning—around 8:00 P.M. in Langley, Virginia—Annabeth took a deep breath and dialed the number, holding the phone numbly to her ear. After two rings, a familiar voice said, "Hello?"

Annabeth smiled in spite of her worry. "Hi, Rachel."

There was a dull _thud_ and Annabeth suppressed a chuckle as she pictured her friend and former coworker Rachel Dare dropping her cell phone with a shocked expression. After a brief shuffling sound, Rachel said in a choked sort of voice, "Annabeth? Is that really you?"

"Yeah, it's me. How are you?"

"Who cares about me? How are _you?_ Where are you? No, wait, don't answer that. I don't want to know. Just—are you okay? What's going on?"

This time Annabeth couldn't help a small laugh. "Slow down, everything's fine! Well, not everything… Look, something's happened. I'm okay," she said hurriedly as she heard Rachel suck in her breath. "But I need your help." Without meaning to, she lowered her voice. "I need you to use your cyber magic and look someone up for me."

"Is this an Olympus thing?" Rachel asked, her voice lowering in kind. "They haven't found you guys, have they?"

"Trust me, Rachel, the less you know, the better," Annabeth argued. "I already feel guilty enough for bringing you into this. I don't want to get you involved any more than necessary."

On the other line, Rachel sighed. "Alright. It must be serious if you sound so worried. Tell me what you need."

It was a mark of their friendship that Rachel didn't hesitate, and again Annabeth couldn't help a smile. "I have to find someone. Friend of a friend. Not a criminal, just a normal person."

"Awesome, a challenge. What's their name? And anything else you can give me."

"Reyna Ramírez-Arellano," Annabeth read the name from a slip of paper Thalia had given her. "She's twenty-five, and used to live in New York City. Went to Fort Hamilton High. My friend thinks she moved south a few years ago, but doesn't know much else."

"Alright, give me a few minutes," Rachel promised. "Let's see what I can find."

As Annabeth waited, she wanted more than anything to catch up with her friend. But the more they talked, the higher the possibility was that the CIA could end up involved. After all, Annabeth was a fugitive. She'd gone against orders and turned on her employers, even began working with Olympus for a time. She was directly involved in the death of her friend-turned-enemy and former Chief of Staff, Luke Castellan. Technically, Rachel was breaking the law having this conversation at all. So instead, however difficult it was, Annabeth remained quiet, chewing her tongue and waiting patiently for the information she needed.

"Got her," Rachel said after barely five minutes. "Reyna Ramírez-Arellano. Formerly of Brooklyn, New York. Some big relocations, this one. Looks like she moved to Texas after high school and attended the University of Houston Downtown, then two years after graduation moved back north. Currently resides at thirteen-fifty-nine Hawthorne Street, Detroit, Michigan. MorningSide borough. Ooh, she's a martial arts instructor? I hope you're not planning to fight her."

Annabeth chuckled as she copied down the address. "Actually, no. We need her help." With a smile, she added, "Thanks, Rachel. You're the best."

"I know," Rachel replied matter-of-factly. She paused a moment before saying, "It was really great hearing from you. Be careful, Annabeth, okay?"

"I will, I promise. You, too."

Hanging up the phone after bidding each other goodbye was even harder than dialing the number had been. Annabeth missed Rachel more than pretty much anyone else from her old life. But she knew that as long as the CIA was after her—which she assumed them still to be—she couldn't completely reconnect with her former best friend. Maybe someday that would change, but for the time being this was what she had to live with.

As Annabeth stared at the slip of paper bearing Reyna's name and address, she could feel the resolve steeling in her mind like rapidly-drying cement. After over a year of trying to forget her past life, here she was, about to take on another job. The difference was that this time it wasn't business—it was personal. The shift in motivation was strange; she felt the same calm conviction that she'd grown accustomed to before, but the anticipation had heightened. This time, she was doing it for herself.

Annabeth held onto that thought as she sat down at her computer and booked the first flight she found direct from London to Detroit, which left at 5:00 A.M. Once that was done, she called Thalia to pass on their new information and made plans to meet at the airport at 4:15. By the time she hung up the phone, Annabeth was fully, mentally prepared to get this show on the road.

As she stood and strode into her and Percy's bedroom to pack, she stopped and felt her heart skip a beat as she took in the sight. She hadn't slept all day, and as such the room looked just as it had when she'd left for the hospital the previous night. The sheets and blankets were pulled from the bed, tangled and draped on the floor. The window through which the attacker had escaped was still open, letting in a cool, winter breeze that made Annabeth shiver. The broken shards of the lamp she'd shattered over the man's back still littered the floor, and the carpet near her dresser was stained dark with blood.

She felt a brief flash of anxiety as she thought of Percy, still sedated in the hospital. But just as quickly she forced it down, telling herself that worrying would get her nowhere. She had to act. She had to make Zeus pay for what he'd done—to put a stop to him before he ruined her life any further. _That_ was how she'd make this better, how she'd get through this whole thing.

By doing exactly what she'd always done best.

-0-0-0-

The flight to Detroit took just under eight hours, and after factoring in the hours they lost due to time zone changes Annabeth and Thalia arrived at their destination around 8:00 A.M. They'd both brought minimal luggage—just one carry-on each with enough things to last them a few days—so getting through the airport was relatively easy. Waiting for a cab, unfortunately, took a little longer, and by the time they reached MorningSide it was after 9:00.

1359 Hawthorne Street was an average-looking two-story house in an average-looking residential neighborhood. Its outer walls were a mix of brick and wood-paneling with deep red trim the same shade as the front door. A simple, paved walkway led up the front yard. Beneath the left awning on the front of the house was a two-car garage, and through its large, clear windows Annabeth could see the only thing that really stood out about the house in the form of two very expensive-looking vehicles—a silver Mustang GT and a black Maserati. Oddly, they didn't seem to fit with the house much at all.

Annabeth didn't know whether or not Thalia's friend would be home, but they were already there and would have to give it a try. Together they headed up the walkway and Annabeth rang the doorbell, hoping Thalia had considered how exactly she planned to explain their situation after just showing up out of the blue. They waited for a long few seconds and just when she was starting to conclude that no one was home the doorknob twisted and the door was pulled inward. Standing on its other side was a woman who looked to be about Annabeth's age but was just barely shorter. She was thin and lean, and despite the January weather was dressed in blue jeans and a purple tank top, long, black hair half-braided over her shoulder.

When her dark eyes passed over Annabeth and landed on Thalia, she smiled. "Thalia!" she greeted her, her voice deeper than Annabeth expected. "What are you doing here?"

"Surprise!" Thalia said with a slightly sheepish grin. She stepped forward and gave her friend a brief hug before saying with a shrug, "I know it's been a while, but I was in the neighborhood. Are you busy? Mind if we come in? I've got something to talk to you about."

"Well, I've got to leave for work in about half an hour," the woman said as her hands moved to her hair and began swiftly completing the half-finished braid. "But you can hang out until then." Though her voice was casual, there was a distinctly serious gleam in her eyes that showed clearly how surprised she was by this visit. She followed Thalia's lead, however, and didn't act out of the ordinary.

"Thanks," Thalia said. "Oh, and this is Annabeth. She's a… family friend. Annabeth, this is Reyna."

Annabeth didn't miss the way Reyna's eyebrows creased just barely at the words 'family friend.' She smiled and held out her hand. "Nice to meet you."

"Likewise," Reyna agreed, shaking Annabeth's hand before tying off her braid. She gave both of them a friendly half-smile. "Follow me."

The inside of the house was noticeably less unremarkable than the outside. The layout was average enough, but a lot of things seemed to catch Annabeth's eye. The front door led into a small, high-ceilinged entrance way winged on the right and back walls by steps that led to the upstairs hallway. To her left, she could see a smaller hallway and a door that probably opened into the garage. To her right was a doorway into some sort of den, inside which she could see a huge flat-screen television set mounted on the wall and a few armchairs arranged around it. Below the TV was a short display stand with a few different home theater options.

Rather than heading that way, though, Reyna led them straight ahead past the stairs (there was another door beneath them that Annabeth guessed might have led to a basement) and into the kitchen. She held her hand out toward the round, mahogany table and moved to stand between the center island and the back counter, before a glass of water and a half-finished bowl of cereal. "Are you guys hungry? Thirsty?" she asked.

"Nah, we ate on the plane," Thalia replied as she and Annabeth seated themselves at the table. Annabeth glanced over the waist-high divider beside them into the living room and noticed another flat-screen television set (though this one was a bit smaller than the one in the den), a computer desk, an oversized couch that ran the length of the back wall, and a door that led into the backyard. Looking around the kitchen, Annabeth noticed that it was filled with a number of high-tech-looking appliances. Interested, she frowned. Obviously this girl made a considerable amount of money, judging by her possessions. She remembered Rachel telling her that Reyna was an instructor at a martial arts school. She didn't think that kind of job would warrant a huge payout. Maybe she was wrong. Or, perhaps Reyna's family was wealthy. If that was the case, though, why wouldn't she live in a more impressive house?

"So what's this about?" Reyna asked seriously as they all got settled, studying both Thalia and Annabeth.

Thalia glanced at Annabeth, nodded, and answered her friend, "It's about Olympus."

Reyna's eyebrows drew more tightly together and she sighed. "I thought so," she admitted, staring at the countertop. "Not much else would prompt someone to pay an unnanounced visit after so long—not that I'm not happy to see you, of course. So are you alright? Is something wrong?"

"I'm fine—just about to do something that might change everything." When Reyna frowned questioningly, Thalia sat up straight and asked, "Do you remember my cousin Percy? Went to high school with us, two grades below? He and I used to do a lot of stuff together growing up."

"Sure, a bit," Reyna said.

"Well," Thalia jerked her head toward Annabeth, "this is his fiancée. She's…" She turned and raised her eyebrows at Annabeth, who waved a hand, permitting her to go on. "She used to work for the CIA. Until about a year ago, when a whole lot of mess went down in New York…"

Together, Annabeth and Thalia recounted to Reyna, as quickly as they could, the events that had taken place in New York, everything that had resulted in Annabeth and Percy's being forced to leave the country. All the while, Reyna listed intently with a hard expression, never showing surprise or interrupting. They finished with the assassin's attack the other night, and their decision to go after Thalia's father.

"I know this has nothing to do with you," Thalia told her friend. "And I'm sorry for coming here and getting you involved—really, I am. But I hoped that if there was anyone in this country I could still trust, it was you. All we need is a place to stay for now. As soon as we find a way to get equipment and transportation, we'll be out of here. I promise."

Reyna was quiet for a moment as she rinsed her dishes and slid them into the dishwasher beneath the counter. "Do you know where you can get those things?"

"Not exactly," Thalia admitted with a shrug. "But I'm sure there are a few people in the organization who wouldn't rat me out to my father if I asked for help. I've just gotta hope I pick the right one. It won't be long, though, don't worry. We only need to stay here for a few days tops, if you've got the space."

Reyna bit her lip in thought. "You can crash here, don't worry about that," she responded, prompting Thalia to grin and Annabeth to breathe out in relief. "But it sounds like it's too big a risk for you to call up any more old friends. This is the leader of Olympus you're going after."

"You're not wrong," Annabeth admitted.

Thalia added, "But it's the only plan we've got right now."

Reyna pulled open a kitchen drawer and produced a pen and a small pad of paper. As she began scrawling something across it, she went on, "Just do me a favor and give it one more day, okay? Don't make any calls, and don't let anyone know you're here." She tore off the top sheet and slid it across the table to the others. "Meet me at this address tonight at nine. I've got to get going, but you're both welcome to stay here in the meantime. There's a spare key hanging by the microwave."

"What's at this address?" Thalia asked with a frown as Reyna grabbed her coat from the counter and lifted a black duffel bag that had been sitting beside the table.

As Reyna backed toward the front hall, Annabeth thought her smile looked more like a smirk. "I want to introduce you to my boyfriend," she answered. "I think he might be able to help you out."

* * *

**If you guys have read any of my other PJO stories (excluding Fire at Will), then you've probably got a pretty good idea of who Reyna's boyfriend is going to be ;) You'll have to wait until Chapter 5 to meet him, though. Next chapter we're back in London with Percy.**

**So hey - if we get a lot of reviews maybe I'll update again this week! How many is a lot? That's up to me. So drop one on your way out and if they scale up you'll get an update on Friday! Trust me, next chapter's exciting. You want it ASAP ;)**

**Later days, everybody!**

**-oMM**


	4. Winner

**Hey, gang! Happy Monday! I just posted the 54th and final chapter of my super-long PJO fanfic and I'm so ecstatic to have it done and completed and beautiful that to celebrate I decided to update this one today, too (even though the two stories have absolutely nothing to do with each other aside from the fact that I wrote them... oh, well, whatever). This chapter's a lot of fun, in my opinion, so it fits my excitement theme, hehe.**

**We're overdue for some action, right? I think so, anyway. But hey - let's fix that.**

**Enjoy!**

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Get off the ledge and drop the **knife** / Not a victim of the _victim's life_

* * *

The first thing Percy experienced when he woke was a flash of panic.

He couldn't remember anything in his immediate history—where he was, what he'd been doing before falling asleep, even what day and time it was. The last thing he did remember was having dinner with Annabeth at a café down the road from their building. Had he done anything after that? When had he gone to bed? Had Annabeth been with him?

No matter what had happened before, something now was definitely wrong. His vision was still a bit blurred from sleep, but he could tell that the room he was in wasn't the bedroom of their flat, and the bed he was lying on was completely unfamiliar. He shifted his arms and started to sit up, but stopped when a sharp pain dug into his stomach from seemingly nowhere. He grunted and dropped back onto his back, bringing a hand to his head as he shut his eyes against a minor wave of dizziness.

When he opened them again he could see much more clearly, and was alarmed to conclude that he was in a hospital room. As soon as that realization sunk in, his memory suddenly cleared as well, bringing back every second that led to that moment—and with them a staggering flood of anger.

_Zeke._

Zeke had done this. Percy's uncle had tried to have him killed, just like his father had warned him fourteen months ago. It didn't matter that he'd left the organization—that he'd let Zeke win. The paranoid, power-hungry _bastard_ just couldn't let sleeping dogs lie. He imagined a threat, and he had to get rid of it. Consequences or casualties be damned.

Percy took a deep breath and tried to stay calm. He was alive, which was good news. He also didn't appear to be hooked up to any conspicuous medical equipment save for an IV drip, which also had to be good news. His torso ached a bit and his limbs were tired, but other than that he felt relatively fine. He had no idea how much time had passed since the attack. The door to his room was closed and no one was in sight. Where was Annabeth? It wasn't as though he expected her to sit an ever-watching vigil at his bedside, but he did at least kind of want to know if she was alright. He didn't think she'd been hurt the night of the attack, and he was pretty sure he remembered the assassin leaving before he'd lost consciousness, but he couldn't be entirely sure.

Looking around, he saw a clipboard and a small pile of papers—probably test results—on the counter to his right. Beside them was an envelope that had his first name written on it in narrow, hastily-scribbled handwriting he recognized immediately.

With a jolt he leaned over and snatched the envelope, pulling himself into a sitting position and tearing it open. Tossing it aside, he unfolded the sheet of paper from inside and scanned the surface, eyes widening as they soaked in every word:

_Percy,_

_First of all, I'm perfectly fine, so don't start worrying. Second of all, if you're reading this, it means you've woken up before I made it back. Again, don't worry—I do plan on coming back. But before I do, there's something Thalia and I have to take care of. She didn't want to tell you just in case you freaked out, but I figured you'd freak out more if you didn't know where we were, so here goes._

_We're going after Zeus. Now, I know what you're going to say. He's dangerous. We don't know what we're getting into. But don't forget—I can handle myself. Remember the first time we fought? I beat you, didn't I? And as for what we're getting into, Thalia knows her father. She's got a good idea of where to find him, even though she won't tell me yet. It'll be quick, I promise. Get in, get done, get out. He has to pay for everything he's done to us, Percy. All I want anymore is a life with you where we don't have to watch our backs every second of every day. But as long as he's around, we can never have that. You have to understand—I want to do this. For us._

_I'm asking you not to come after us, okay? I know that's what you're thinking, and I'm telling you it's too risky. You're the one he's after. When he finds out you're still alive, he'll try again—at least that's what Thalia thinks._

_Stay in London. Rest up. Get better. I promise we'll be home soon._

_I love you,_

_Annabeth_

For a second Percy just stared blankly at the letter, not entirely sure he'd read it correctly. Once he'd re-read it twice and was forced to accept what it told him, he felt his face contort in disbelieving anger. What in the _hell_ were they _thinking?_ They were going after Zeke? _Zeke? Seriously?_ And neither of them thought it a decent idea to wait until he'd woken up and discuss it with him first? Thalia may have known her father when they were kids, but he'd changed since her abdication. He was smart, powerful, ruthless, and had the entire organization at his disposal. The chances of Annabeth and Thalia's even being able to _get to_ Zeke, let alone kill him, were lower than either of them obviously understood.

This was bad. Really bad. Percy twisted sideways and pulled back the sheet covering him, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. His mind was racing. He didn't know what to do about this, but he had to do something. Annabeth and Thalia were in trouble. They didn't realize how difficult of a task they'd taken on. He'd have to find a way to contact them somehow. Would they have a phone on them? If they did, would they answer? Judging by Annabeth's letter, she fully expected him to want to stop them. But she didn't get how much she should have let him. Alright, she had a point about Zeke standing in the way of their happiness. And yeah, maybe he did need to taste a little retribution once in a while. But that didn't mean it had to happen immediately. What if this was the last they ever saw of him? What if he decided to let the failed assassination act as something of a warning—or better yet, what if he never found out it failed at all? There were way too many factors at work here to make such a dangerous decision so quickly.

Just then, the door was suddenly pushed open with a creaking sound that broke the silence Percy hadn't realized was so heavy. He looked up, reflexively crumpling Annabeth's note in his hand and hiding it from view, and the nurse standing in the doorway stopped short in surprise.

"Oh—you're awake," he said, one hand on the doorknob and another holding a clipboard. "I was just coming by to take your readings. How are you feeling?"

"Fine," Percy said a bit hoarsely, blinking a few times and trying to appear less frustrated than he felt. "I mean—better. A bit sore and tired, but… better."

"I wouldn't advise getting out of bed just yet," the nurse said with a frown as he strode into the room. "Is something wrong?"

"What? No, I just… My fiancée. I was just… wondering if she was here."

"Oh, Miss Chase. I'm sorry, she said she'd be leaving town for a few days—had a mate that needed her help. She didn't leave a mobile number. For now, though, if you'll lie back down I'll go ahead and check—"

All of a sudden, everything changed. The bright hospital lights shut down abruptly, prompting a dim, dark red emergency light near the room's ceiling to flicker on. Voices in the hallway screamed. Somewhere outside, an alarm was sounding—an alternating low- and high-pitched _whirr_.

"What the—?" the nurse stammered as he dropped his clipboard and spun toward the hallway. Meanwhile, every battle reflex Percy had was going haywire. He could tell immediately that this was no drill—something was seriously wrong. And there was no way in hell he was going to sit around and wait to find out what.

While the nurse was distracted, Percy yanked the IV from his arm and stood, glad when the only physical consequence was a very brief flash of dizziness that faded almost at once. The adrenaline was bringing strength back to his limbs and clearing the last dregs of haziness from his mind. He shot a glance at the door and noticed people running back and forth down the hall. He had to get out there and get some answers. He glanced down and clucked his tongue—who was going to take him seriously if he ran around in a hospital gown?

Thinking fast, Percy glanced at the nurse who'd stopped by, who was now standing near the door watching people pass with an alarmed expression. He looked to be in his late twenties, about an inch taller than Percy with a slightly smaller build. Perfect.

Not giving himself any more time to think, Percy strode up to the man and grabbed his shoulder. "Hey," he said as the nurse turned to face him, a mix of fear and confusion in his eyes. "Sorry about this, but I'm gonna need your clothes."

"What's that—?"

No time to finish that sentence as Percy clenched a fist and drove his elbow into the guy's face. He crumpled to the ground, knocked out cold. Percy dragged him just out of view of the door and pulled off his scrubs, T-shirt, and shoes, redressing himself in a matter of seconds. He even grabbed the guy's name badge and pinned it to his chest for good measure.

Satisfied, he made his way out into the hall, pulling the door shut behind him and glancing both ways. The hallway was lit by the same red emergency lights as his room. The alarm was louder out here, and he could see people dashing in and out of doors and talking hurriedly with one another, carting supplies this way and that. He turned left and started down the hall, thinking that was the way toward the main lobby.

"—for now, tell them it's just a drill," a female voice floated out from a room just ahead of him as he neared. "Tell the patients not to worry and to _stay_ in their beds. Someone probably tripped the alarm by mistake, but until we know for sure we've got to keep everyone from panicking. Got it?"

A few voices replied in the affirmative and just as Percy reached the room in question a group of six or seven nurses and doctors hurried out through the door, splitting up and rushing off. As the last one emerged, Percy grabbed her arm and demanded in a false English accent, "What's going on? Nobody told us there was a drill scheduled for today."

"I don't know," the doctor replied, an exhausted look on her face. "All I was told was to try and keep everyone calm. I'm sure if there's anything wrong we'll find out soon enough. For now, just make your rounds quickly and tell your patients not to worry." With that, she pushed past Percy and ran down the hall. He narrowed his eyes in apprehension before heading off in the opposite direction.

Just when he rounded a corner and the lobby came into sight, there was a loud _crash_ and the floor rumbled dangerously beneath his feet, causing him to stumble sideways against the wall. All around him, the hospital employees were staggering and falling, yelling and looking around for the source of the apparent earthquake. Up ahead a chorus of voices screamed, and when Percy looked he saw thin clouds of smoke beginning to waft down the hall. Dread chilling his blood, he stood up straight and headed toward the lobby, shoving through the people scrambling hurriedly in the other direction.

When the hallway opened up, he saw immediately what had happened. The front doors and main desk of the lobby had collapsed, part of the wall demolished. Fire was eating away at the charred and broken bits of the building. All around, people were shouting and climbing over one another to escape whatever explosion had gone off. A few people hadn't been so lucky, judging by the bodies lying motionlessly in and around the wreckage. Even the emergency lights in the lobby had gone out now, though the dying flames provided the same ominous shade of illumination.

What the heck was going on here? It may have been possible that this was some sort of freak accident, but Percy knew the chances of that were slim. If the explosion had originated in maintenance or electrical, sure. But in the main lobby, right by the front doors? No, something was happening, that much was certain. And he was going to find out what.

He'd barely forced his way into the lobby, however, when all of a sudden an arm quickly wrapped around his neck from behind. Reflexively he reached up and grabbed it with both hands, all his muscles tensing at once, but having caught him off guard the other person had the advantage. The grip yanked him backward, back into the hallway, and then sideways into the first room they came to. He was shoved roughly against the bed as the door slammed shut, and when he spun around his path was blocked by two men wearing doctors' shirts over black jackets and jeans.

Percy gritted his teeth and was about to demand what the heck they were doing when he realized he recognized one of them. "You…" he growled, eyes widening in understanding. "I know you. You work for my uncle."

"I'm sorry, Jackson," the familiar one said, and to Percy's slight surprise he sounded like he actually meant it. "Boss's orders." With impressive speed he pulled a 9-millimeter from his jacket and Percy barely had time to throw himself sideways before the gun was fired and the bullet hit the wall behind him. He rolled over the bed and dropped to his knees behind it as two more gunshots blared, one tearing into the mattress and one striking the IV stand beside the bed.

Percy cursed under his breath, wishing he had a gun—or any kind of weapon, really. He couldn't believe Zeke had found out what had happened already and had gone in for another attack, and this time against how many innocent people. Was there no end to the guy's ruthlessness?

The instant one of the men stepped around the foot of the bed, Percy lunged for him, grabbing him around the legs and pulling him to the ground. The man twisted and pointed his gun, and Percy snatched his wrist and shoved upward, causing him to fire into the ceiling. He pushed himself up on his knees and punched the guy hard in the jaw with his left hand. The man retaliated by driving a fist into Percy's already-injured stomach and he doubled over with a pained yell, allowing the man to free his other arm and shove Percy sideways onto his back. The guy leaned over him and aimed the gun at his head, and he shifted to the side just in time for the bullet to slice the floor instead of his skull. He pulled a leg up and kicked the man in the ribs with as much force as he could, prompting him to cry out hoarsely and drop to his side.

Another bullet swished past and struck the linoleum, and Percy jumped and sat up, scrambling sideways. He leapt to his feet as the other man charged forward, pistol held ready. Before he could shoot, Percy grabbed his extended arm with his right hand and pulled, spinning around to drive his left elbow into the man's face. He yelled thickly and his grip on his gun must have loosened, because when Percy tightened his hold on the guy's wrist the weapon dropped from his hand. He was quick to recover, though, and grabbed Percy's shoulder instead, pulling him around and driving a fist into his cheekbone. He staggered backward until the guy's hands latched onto the front of his shirt and the man drove forward, shoving Percy's back against the wall beside the door.

_This is a lot harder than it should be_, Percy thought in frustration. It may have been a little arrogant, but he was pretty sure that if he wasn't already injured and weak he'd have beaten these guys by now. As it was, though, this was what he was going to have to deal with. But that didn't mean he was going down easily.

In the dim, red light, Percy could see the second guy climbing slowly to his feet behind the one that still had him pinned to the wall. He didn't have a weapon, his body was slow and tired, and he was pretty darn sure he wouldn't be getting any help anytime soon. That meant he'd be forced to improvise—and fast.

Gritting his teeth, he reached up and around his captor's neck, snatching the back collar of his loose doctor's shirt and pulling it upward over his head. The man yelled "Hey!" and hunched forward, his grip slackening, and Percy shoved him backward. He stumbled and tripped onto the bed, rolling sideways and trying to free himself from his clothing. Immediately Percy charged at the other man, dodging as two bullets were fired in his direction. He rammed his shoulder into the man's chest, forcing him back against a stand of electronic medical equipment. The man stumbled to the ground, his arms catching on loose wires and yanking half the contents of the stand down on top of him. Percy grabbed the small rolling chair before the table next to the stand and swung it like a club, smashing into the equipment. He darted backward as sparks flew everywhere. The man on the ground, still tangled in cords and medical devices, twitched violently before falling still—whether dead or unconscious, Percy had no idea.

He spun around just in time to duck a high kick from the other guy, who in turn dodged a punch aimed at his face. His arms shot out and one hand wrapped around Percy's left arm as the other grabbed a fistful of the front of his shirt. He staggered forward and Percy felt his back hit the corner of the desk. He reflexively latched onto the guy's arms and hooked his leg around the back of the man's knee, disrupting his footing, before shoving forward and bowling them both to the ground.

The man's gun was just within their reach on the floor, and before the other guy could act Percy reached over and grabbed it. He dug his knee into the guy's chest and fired a bullet into his thigh, causing him to scream through tightly-gritted teeth. Then he brought it up and rammed the barrel under the man's chin, leaning over to glare at him.

"Tell Zeke from me," he said, his voice gravelly from his heavy breathing, "I'm done letting him win."

He used the gun to club the guy on the side of the head, effectively knocking him out, then climbed to his feet, stowing the weapon in the back waistband of his pants. His entire body was intensely sore—especially the stab wound in his abdomen—but he bit down on his tongue as a distraction and tried to ignore it. He had more important things to worry about. Like getting the heck out of there, for example.

Percy was sure to close the door tightly behind him as he left the room, just in case. Out in the hall, things were more chaotic than ever. Now that everyone knew the hospital was under attack, the doctors and nurses had begun evacuating the patients, and there were people everywhere. Percy stepped back into the lobby, but by now the place was crawling with policemen and paramedics. Sirens and flashing lights could be heard through the gaping hole in the front of the room. The people who were unhurt were being rounded up and escorted to the cop cars outside, possibly for questioning and debriefing.

Percy grimaced and took a step back. Being interrogated by law enforcement was the _last_ thing he wanted—especially with his fiancée and cousin going after the man responsible for this whole thing. He had other things to do. There was no time for cooperation with the law.

Well, for that they would have to find him. Without another thought, he turned and dashed back into the east hallway, dodging around the people running this way and that, the employees leading the sick and wounded, the paramedics trying to help the injured. The alarm had been shut off, but the lights hadn't come back on and the whole place was still cast in that eerie, red glow. More than once he ran into people trying to go the other way, but hardly anyone seemed to notice.

When he turned a corner and reached a less crowded hallway, an odd sound reached his ears. It was a high, shrill beeping, and it sounded really close. With an alarmed frown, he leaned into the closest room, but it sounded no louder. He ran a few steps down the hall, but it was exactly the same. Straining his ears, he thought for a wild second that it was coming from somewhere right in front of him, just below his line of vision. He looked down and his heart skipped a beat when he saw a tiny red light blinking rapidly on the front of his shirt. He reached into the pocket over his chest and produced a small, silver disc with three flashing red rings.

His lungs seemed to turn to cement when he realized that he knew what it was. It was one of Beckendorf's inventions—a Cerberus mine. One of his uncle's men must have dropped it in his pocket without his realizing it. But it must have been improved since the last model he'd seen, because now there was a small screen on the front over the activation button that displayed changing, digital numbers—a countdown. It had less than thirty seconds until it would reach zero.

He tried pressing the button to deactivate the device, but all that happened was the countdown disappeared and the word 'PASSCODE' appeared in its place above a number touchpad.

_No freakin' way…_ Percy thought in dread. How the heck was he supposed to guess the passcode for this thing?

He knew immediately that it was no use—in eighteen seconds, that thing was going off with a blast that could destroy the whole lower east wing of the hospital. There was no stopping it. People were going to die—probably a lot of people. And Zeke had made it happen.

That thought brought about only one other—Percy sure as hell was _not_ going to be one of those people. Trying to swallow a staggering flash of guilt, he threw the mine into the first empty room he passed, slamming the door shut. "Get out of here!" he yelled to the people in the hallway as he ran away from the room. "Get back to the lobby! Now! Hurry!"

The thing about catastrophes was that nobody seemed to question random orders screamed at them in the middle of all the confusion. The people in the hall gasped and shouted and picked up speed, running back the way from which Percy had come. They wouldn't all make it, but if any of them were saved, then that'd be something at least.

As for himself, Percy darted into an empty room a ways down and across the hall from the one in which he'd deposited the mine. He kicked the door shut and pulled out the gun he'd stolen, firing the remaining bullets into the window against the back wall and shattering the glass. Then he vaulted over the bed and dove through the open window, rolling over the snow-dusted pavement outside just as a deafening explosion split the air. He threw his arms over his head and lied flat on his stomach as he felt a burning rush of heat and wind that blasted the breath from his lungs and singed his hair and clothes, all the while trying not to picture what was going on inside the building.

When things had seemed to settle, Percy finally lowered his arms and raised his head, coughing roughly at the thickness of the air. He realized that his ears were ringing loudly, blocking out just about any other sound. Cringing, he brought a hand to his left ear and was unsurprised when his fingers came away damp and red. With a groan, he pushed himself upright and sat back on his knees, glancing to his left at the partly-collapsed east wing of the hospital. Thankfully, the foundations had held together enough to keep the entire wing from imploding in on itself. The bottom three floors had been caught in the explosion, bringing the remaining floors down on top of them in an uneven stack. Flames slid up the building, biting at the dim, evening sky. Through the windows, Percy could see that all the emergency lighting in the east wing had failed—every room looked dark. If he could hear, he was sure the air would be filled with screams.

A hard, steely anger and determination soaked through Percy's body as he stood, rolling his shoulders and looking away from the hospital. His mind was made up. Annabeth had told him not to go after her, but this changed everything. He was going after her, alright. But he wasn't going to stop her from hunting Zeke.

He was going to help her.

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**Yessss so as you can see, Percy is certainly not going to be sitting on the sidelines in this story. Yes, the summary is a little misleading. But I like it that way. The action's pretty split, I promise.**

**So how 'bout a review? Shouldn't be too long until the next update. Depends on when I get chapter 7 finished because it's causing me a few problems. I'm off to go work more on it now, though.**

**Thanks, all! Later days!**

**-oMM**


	5. Locked

**Happy Thursday, gang! Like old times, isn't it? Haha.**

**Thanks to those of you who reviewed last chapter, and welcome all new followers :D Broke 100 followers last chapter, and hopefully I can drag on a few more as we get going.**

**So we're back with Annabeth this chaper. Let's get our strike team together, shall we? Most of you guessed correctly who the new character will be (if not, it'll be obvious in like paragraph 3). You guys know me so well ;)**

**Enjoy!**

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This ain't a room full of **suicides** / We're believers, _I believe_ tonight

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"Um… Are you sure this is the right address?"

With a frown, Annabeth re-read the slip of paper Reyna had given them that morning for at least the twelfth time. The handwriting was neat and impossible to misread—_2800 Main St., Highland Park, Detroit._ She lifted her head and scanned the side of the building, on which the words 2800 MAIN STREET were hung in black iron shapes.

"The cab driver said this is the only Main Street in Highland Park," she replied with an admissive lift of her shoulder.

Thalia sighed shortly. "But why would Reyna send us to an auto shop? Besides, the place closed an hour ago. Look at the sign."

Annabeth stepped up beside Thalia, turning her head to either side and briefly inspecting the building. It was a two-story edifice that sat on the corner of Ninth and Main and spanned a good chunk of the block toward downtown. The front entrance was near the street corner, and to its left was a line of six garage entrances, though at the moment all of them were closed and barred. On the left end of the building was a driveway leading around to the back. Above the garage doors, the words "The Forge, Auto Repair and Customization" were emblazoned in fiery red, orange, and black lettering.

As she neared, Annabeth noticed that Thalia had been right—the shop's weekday hours were 9:00 A.M. to 8:00 P.M. Despite that, though, through the industrial glass door and surrounding windows she could see lights on inside.

"I don't know, but somebody's still here," she concluded. "Might as well try the door, right?" Thalia tilted her head apprehensively and Annabeth stepped past her, grabbing the silver door handle. It pulled open with little force, despite being after hours, so after exchanging a shrug with Thalia she led the way inside. As the door swung closed again, a high-pitched _ding_ sounded in announcement of their presence.

Inside was an empty sitting area. Across from the door was the front desk, on which sat a square computer screen and two registers, among other random clutter and sheets of paper. The two corner walls were lined with black leather sofas and armchairs, dotted in between with tables bearing small stacks of newspapers and magazines. From the garage, Annabeth could hear the sounds of humming machinery.

"Shop's closed, ladies," a sudden voice interrupted, and Annabeth and Thalia jumped and turned around to see a man leaning on the front counter, evidently having just emerged through the open doorway behind it. He was about her age, maybe a little younger, dressed in dark gray pants and a cropped-neck T-shirt that had clearly once been white but was dotted with motor oil stains. He grinned at them and added, "But if you come back tomorrow, I'd be more than happy to personally give you any help you need."

Annabeth rolled her eyes, a little amused by the obvious but not too impolite come-on.

"Actually," Thalia said in a slightly tight voice, sounding annoyed, "we're supposed to meet a friend here tonight. Reyna Ramírez-Arellano?"

Annabeth fully expected the guy to scoff at them and send them away, so she was surprised when he raised his eyebrows and stood up straight, saying, "Oh, you're meeting Reyna here? In that case, come on back." He jerked his head toward the doorway behind the counter, then glanced at the clock hanging on the wall. "She just got off work—should be here in under ten."

He turned and disappeared through the doorway and Annabeth exchanged a glance with Thalia before following him. Predictably, it led into the high-ceilinged garage, inside which a number of cars were waiting to be worked on—some on raised platforms, some resting on the ground.

"Take a seat over there," the mechanic told them, waving an arm at a row of cushioned metal chairs against the right wall. He strode over to a dark blue Cruze with its hood propped open and leaned under it, hands messing with something on the engine panel.

As she and Thalia slid their coats off and took his advice to sit down to wait, Annabeth thought back on what Reyna had hurriedly told them before leaving for work that morning. "Hey," she said in a low voice despite the noisy garage, leaning closer to Thalia. "Reyna said to come here because she wanted us to meet her boyfriend, right? Think that's him?"

"No way," Thalia replied at once, watching the mechanic with her arms crossed.

"Why not?"

"Because I know Reyna," Thalia said confidently. "And this guy is _not_ her type. Trust me."

Annabeth chewed her lip, eyes on the mechanic as he pulled a lug wrench from the leather tool belt around his waist and flipped it in his hand, ducking back under the hood of the Cruze. He was a few inches taller than Annabeth, probably just south of six feet, and had a thin build. His sleeves were rolled up over his shoulders to show lean, muscled arms—unsurprising, given his profession. He looked to be some manner of Latino nationality, with swarthy skin and a mess of dark, curly hair, and his features were just a bit pointed like an elf's.

"How do you know?" she asked Thalia. "We barely met him. Besides, he's cute and all."

Thalia rolled her eyes. "Sure, but Reyna isn't all about looks. She's serious and hardworking—always has been. And… you know, clean. And this guy…" She shook her head. "I don't know, I'm just getting a different vibe."

Annabeth lifted a shoulder and leaned back in her chair. Barely two more minutes had passed before a door at the back of the garage opened with a rush of cold wind and Reyna strode in, pulling her hood down and shaking out her long braid. As she pushed the door shut, she turned and said, "Good, you guys made it." Thalia leaned forward and Annabeth stood up as Reyna walked up to them and tossed her coat and duffel bag on an empty chair, then turned and shot a pointed look at the mechanic, who was still working. "Leo, would you get your head out of that car?" she said flatly. She placed her hands on her hips and started toward him with a sigh, prompting Annabeth to realize that Thalia was probably right about them.

That is, until the mechanic stood and turned around with an amused grin, saying, "Gee, nice to see you too, Reyna. Long day?" and her first response was to shake her head, smile, and lean up to press a brief kiss to his lips.

As Thalia stood up quickly, eyebrows drawing together very tightly in surprise, Reyna let go of the mechanic and said to him, "You're the one who only comes home once every three or four days."

"Hey, this place doesn't run itself."

"Yeah, yeah." Reyna turned to the others and said, "This is Thalia, a friend of mine from high school. And that's Annabeth. Guys, this is Leo."

Leo smiled and opened his mouth, halting when Thalia interrupted, "Wait, you're _dating_ this guy?"

Reyna cocked her head to the side and Leo's grin angled to a bewildered frown. He glanced at Reyna and asked, "Meaning… what, exactly?"

When Reyna raised her eyebrows inquisitively in kind, Thalia shook her head and backtracked, "No, nothing, I just… So… you said he can help us, right?"

Annabeth hid a smile at the exchange as Reyna answered, "Yeah, I think so. I just wanted you to try before going anywhere else."

"What, you guys got car trouble?" Leo said, snatching a dirty rag from the table nearby and wiping the grease from his hands. "Then you're at the right place. Though I hope Reyna didn't promise you a free ride or anything just 'cause you got history. I _am_ tryin' to run a business here."

"Reyna, I don't know about this," Annabeth admitted. It was true they needed transportation, but she didn't want to involve anyone more than absolutely necessary. "We appreciate the thought, but I'm sure we can find a car from… a friend." She exchanged a glance with Thalia, who nodded her understanding.

"No, I mean—" Reyna said quickly, "Leo's a freelance arms dealer."

Annabeth's eyebrows shot up. Well, _that_ was a bit more relevant and potentially helpful.

Leo cringed and rounded on his girlfriend. "What the hell?" he demanded. "That's not information I just hand out like carnival balloons. They could be cops for all I know." With an odd look, he turned to Annabeth and Thalia. "In which case, might I add, Reyna here has a fantastic and overactive imagination—and she's also a pathological liar."

"Calm down, Leo," Reyna said with slight exasperation. "This is about Olympus."

Instantly the look of false amusement vanished from his face, replaced with one of wide-eyed anger. "_What?_" he growled, glaring at the two of them and causing Annabeth to tense in surprise.

"We're not _with_ Olympus," she explained at once, realizing that some clarification was in order. She glanced sideways at Thalia. "Well—we're sort of… related to them, but we aren't—well, _with_ them, exactly…"

Leo fixed her with an expression somewhere between annoyed and confused. "You lost me."

Rolling her eyes, Thalia stepped forward and said matter-of-factly, "The leader of Olympus is my father."

"What?" Leo repeated, though this time he arched an eyebrow in alarm. "Zeus is your _father?_"

"You know him?"

"Oh, yeah," he said bitterly, his expression hardening. "We go way back. So if he's your father, that means you _are_ part of Olympus, aren't you?"

"I was," Thalia admitted. "I left when I was eighteen. Wanted my own life, you know? Not the one he had planned for me. So I moved to London with my band and I never saw him again. I was content to let it stay that way. But dear old dad, well… he had to go and ruin it."

Together, Thalia and Annabeth explained, just like they did to Reyna that morning, what they were planning and why. They recounted briefly what had happened in New York, how Annabeth had become involved, why they'd left the country, how they'd been attacked a few nights ago, and their decision to go after Ezekiel Grace himself. As they talked, Leo reached into his tool belt and produced a black Zippo lighter, which he absently started flicking on and off, his dark eyes fixed on the flame as he listened to their story.

"So now you need wheels and firepower to bring the big guy to his knees, right?" he summed up once they'd concluded. Annabeth nodded in affirmation, waiting apprehensively as he stared at his lighter, jaw sliding back and forth in thought. "Well, if you guys are going after Zeus," he said, snapping the lighter shut, "I want in."

Annabeth exchanged a relieved look with Thalia. "So you'll help us?"

Leo grinned, and Annabeth thought she noticed a particularly mischievous gleam in his eyes. "What's mine is yours. But on one condition—I'm going with you."

"Are you sure about that?" Annabeth asked seriously. "It's gonna be dangerous. I mean _really_ dangerous. We're talking about the leader of Olympus."

"You think I don't get that?" he challenged. "I'm not just a mechanic, you know. I can handle myself."

He seemed confident and serious, and if Annabeth was honest they _could_ use the extra manpower. She wondered what history Leo had with Zeke that would drive him to make such a decision, but at the same time she'd only just met him and wasn't sure it was her place to ask. She was momentarily distracted, though, when he snapped his lighter open and closed again with a smirk and the movement made something near his neck catch her eye—as his shoulder shifted, she noticed a tattoo on his right collarbone, three small, black circles arranged in a triangular formation.

Annabeth's eyes widened. "That's a Three Dots tattoo," she said, raising a finger toward it. She'd learned about it in agency training—the Three Dots tattoo was a mark commonly used by incarcerated Hispanic gangs. "You were in prison."

Leo's smirk vanished. "Yeah," he said dully. He nodded at Thalia and added, "Thanks to Daddy Dearest."

"What do you mean?" Thalia asked, tilting her head to the side.

Leo shook his head, but before he could reply Reyna placed a hand on his arm and said seriously, "They told you what happened to them."

With a short sigh, he shrugged and admitted, "Fair point. You guys really wanna know?"

"If you're gonna come with us and expect us to trust you," Annabeth said, "it would help to understand your motivation."

"Okay, okay," he conceded, leaning back against the open hood of the car behind him. "Gather 'round, kids. It's story time."

So Annabeth and Thalia sat back down and listened as Leo told them his story from the beginning. According to him, he'd always been good with hardware—his mother had owned a machine shop a while back and when he was a kid he'd hung around there almost constantly. Then when he was eight, his mother was killed in a shop accident and he'd gone into foster care. He'd worked on cars part-time in junior high and high school, helping out at different repair shops, and had gotten involved in weapon dealing when he was sixteen, thanks to a referral from his not-so-upstanding second employer. After graduation, he'd opened an auto shop in Houston, Texas, where he'd lived for most of his life, and also used it as a cover for his _other_ business (the shop had also, as Reyna added, been how the two of them had met). As his weapons work had progressed and earned him more and more clients, he'd eventually caught the eye of Olympus. He sold to them a few times—small orders, nothing too complicated. Until once, when he was nineteen and Zeus contacted him to make a deal, placing a particularly large and advanced order for a stock of customized sniper-scope M18 autorifles. When the time of the exchange came, Zeus evidently decided to pay Leo for his services in a non-monetary way—by framing him for a crime he didn't commit. That same night, Zeus's exchange team had intercepted a bank transfer vehicle and made off with almost three hundred thousand dollars. It was obvious that the leader of Olympus had been planning to have Leo take the fall from the start, because they'd had the getaway car registered in his name. The police caught him that night, and he was convicted as an accomplice to grand theft and sentenced to two years in prison. When he got out, he and Reyna moved to Detroit with the money she'd kept safe for him and he'd been able to open his new shop, the one Annabeth and Thalia were still sitting in. And, eventually, he'd also picked up with his dealing business as well—which, Annabeth couldn't help but think, pretty clearly explained the multitude of expensive possessions in their house.

"He tricked me," Leo concluded in a low voice, flicking his lighter with a bit more force than was necessary. "That greedy, egotistical jackass framed me for something I didn't do, just because he wasn't in the mood to drop some cash. If he'd gotten me caught for dealing, then hey—I'd'a been pissed, but at least _that_ was something I _did_. But going to jail for no reason other than some selfish jerk deciding not to pony up—I know he's your dad and all, but somebody like him should _not_ have the kind of power he has. Way too many people get stepped on and shoved aside thanks to his insane power trip."

"I'm not arguing with you," Thalia said grimly. "Heck, this whole thing was my idea. I'm not about to stick up for him just because we share some DNA strands. There's no explaining what he's done—and there's no excuse for it, either."

"I wasn't planning to get him back," Leo told them, standing up straight and folding his arms. "I'm not stupid enough to go after Olympus on my own. But you guys coming here for help—that's gotta be some kind of sign. I've been avoiding Olympus for long enough. If you're out to make 'em pay, I'm with you. One-thousand-percent."

"Then I guess you're in," Annabeth decided. Judging by his story and the way he'd told it, he had just as much reason and desire to get back at Zeke as she and Thalia did. Assuming he meant what he said about being able to take care of himself, he'd be a welcome addition to the team.

"Great," Leo said with a contagious grin that made Annabeth unconsciously smile as well. "Most of my stuff's in a warehouse I've got just outside Highland Park."

"We should make a stop at home before we get going, too," Reyna added. "For some extra supplies."

"'We'?" Thalia repeated, raising an eyebrow.

Reyna stared back at her friend unflinchingly. "Yes, 'we'. When Zeus hurt Leo, he hurt me, too. What he did could've ruined both our lives. And I'm not sitting by while all of you hunt him down. I'm going with you."

Even though Annabeth barely knew Reyna, even she could tell that she wasn't the type of person to be argued with. Not that she was entirely sure she wanted to. This was starting to look like a pretty promising setup—she and Thalia were sure to benefit from having a weapons and mechanics expert and a martial arts instructor alongside them.

"Awesome," Leo said. "So we swing by the house, hit my storehouse, and head to… Wait, where exactly are we going?"

Annabeth glanced inquisitively at Thalia, not knowing the answer to that question. "Chicago," Thalia told them. "We need to get to Abraham Skye, the CEO of United Airlines. They own a cluster of floors in the Willis Tower."

"We have to get to the CEO of United Airlines?" Annabeth repeated, surprised. _That _didn't exactly sound easy. "Why?"

"Because," Thalia said calmly, "Abraham Skye is an alias—an alias for the guy we're after. United's CEO is actually Ezekiel Grace."

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**Alright, it's almost go-time! This seems so quick, but I promise there are actually gonna be 20 chapters again. I've still got a lot of wackiness up my sleeve. Heh heh.**

**So, review for me? Pretty please? Back with Percy again next chapter, which will be up sometime next week, depending on my mood and how many reviews I get.**

**Thanks, guys! Later days!**

**-oMM**


	6. Stitch

**Hey, guys! Yeah, we skipped a Thursday. Trouble is I'm still not done with chapter 7 and I've been so busy my motivation's been low. Hopefully it doesn't last much longer.**

**Thanks to those of you who reviewed last chapter :) Enjoy!**

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We can leave _this world_, leave it **all behind** / We can _steal_ this car if your folks **don't mind**

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It was sort of strange, being back in New York.

Though he hadn't been away all that long, Percy had been trying the whole time to come to terms with the fact that he would probably never see his old hometown again—at least, not until his uncle had retired or passed away. But now here he was, only a year later, watching the familiar city go by through the back window of a taxi cab. It was the middle of the night, but that didn't mean activity was low. It never was in Manhattan. Cars rumbled by, kicking up dirty, winter slush, and the sidewalks were dotted with pedestrians trudging through the gray, salted snow. It all looked so familiar that even though everything in Percy's life had changed since he'd called this city home, being back made it feel like no time had passed at all.

When he reached his destination, he paid the cab driver and stepped out of the car, trying not to flinch as pain shot through his torso when he stood straight. After stopping at his and Annabeth's flat very briefly for some supplies, a quick shower, and a change of clothes, Percy had jumped the first plane from London to New York, relying on the prospect of a seven-hour flight to help him rest. Even after that, he was still tired and sore from the ordeal at the hospital, and the kick to the stomach he'd taken had succeeded in partially reopening the stab wound. He'd bandaged it off before leaving home, but he hadn't taken the time to get a good look at it. He had more important things to occupy his mind.

Rolling his shoulders to shake off the stiffness, Percy slung his bag over his back and headed up the sidewalk to the apartment building's side entrance, trying to plan out what he was going to say. He hadn't called ahead—he'd decided to leave his phone in London just on the off chance that Zeke had found a way to use it to track him. He was going to try not to get discovered until absolutely necessary. This also meant that he needed help from someone in the States whom he could trust. And at that thought, one name immediately came to mind.

When he reached the right apartment, he stopped and leaned against the doorframe, feeling surprisingly exhausted after ascending a single flight of metal stairs. He must have lost a bit more blood than he'd thought. He'd have to figure out a way around that. Ignoring it for now, he raised a heavy hand and knocked twice on the door.

After a minute or so he heard some dull shuffling on the other side (which wasn't surprising; it _was_ the middle of the night) before the door was pulled inward and the sleepy pair of dark brown eyes behind it widened with instant alertness.

"_Percy?_"

Still leaning on the doorframe, Percy gave a tired smile. "Hey, Grover. Long time, no see."

"What…? But… How…? I…" Grover Underwood stammered, mouth open in shock. "We'd heard you were dead!"

"Who told you that?"

"Your dad." Grover's voice was a bit faint. "He said that… That Zeke told…"

Percy clucked his tongue in mild irritation. So Zeke was already spreading the happy news, was he?

"Grover, who's there?" a voice called from inside the apartment, and Grover turned sideways to reveal his wife, Juniper, stepping out of the bedroom. She froze in the motion of tying a bathrobe around her waist as Percy smiled apologetically and waved. "Oh!" she exclaimed breathily, before rushing straight past her husband and throwing her arms around Percy, wrapping him in a tight hug. When he grunted in pain, she backed quickly away, blinking tears out of her eyes as they sharpened. "What happened?" she asked, looking him up and down. "You look terrible—Is that blood? We should call for—"

"No," Percy insisted at once. "Nobody can know I'm here. I'm sorry about this, guys, but I really need your help."

His two friends exchanged uneasy glances. Grover shrugged weakly and Juniper sighed in admission. "Alright," she said quietly. "Come in, come in. Lie down and I'll have a look at that while you explain what you're doing here and why everyone thinks you're dead."

She gripped his arm firmly and pulled him inside, before forcing him to remove his shirt and jacket and lie back on the sofa while she fetched some supplies from the closet.

"So," Grover asked as he leaned back against an armchair and folded his arms over his pajama shirt. "I'm sure you can imagine our surprise to find you half-passed-out in our hallway. What the heck happened, man?"

"Zeke," Percy said shortly, sitting up somewhat as Juniper sat beside him, pushing a lock of amber hair behind her ear and shifting through the pile of instruments on her lap. "He tried to have me killed. Twice."

"What?"

"Remember before I left—I told you what my dad said, about Zeke thinking I was threatening his position. I left to escape that, to try to show him that I wanted nothing to do with him anymore. But apparently, that wasn't enough for him. I don't know how he found me, but he did. An assassin showed up at our place the other night—that's how I got this." He pointed to the stab wound Juniper was in the process of unwrapping. The bandages he'd thrown on hastily that evening were now darkened with blood.

"There are traces of stitches here," Juniper said with a frown. "But they've been torn."

"Yeah, that happened at the hospital," Percy explained, grimacing as she poked at the broken stitches. "When Zeke's goons bombed the place."

"_What?_" Grover repeated with a look of something between horror and revulsion. "He _bombed _a _hospital?_"

"Yeah. Just to get to me. I fought off the attackers and barely made it out, but there was nothing I could do about the explosion. It was… a mess. _His_ mess."

"I'm gonna re-stitch the cut," Juniper told him, green eyes trained on the wound. "I don't have any anesthetic, so it's going to hurt. But it's better than you bleeding out on my couch."

Percy managed a weak chuckle. "It's okay, I can handle it."

"I can't believe he would do something like that," Grover muttered, frowning in disgust. "A hospital, seriously…" He sighed and looked up. "What about Annabeth? Is she okay?"

"Honestly, I have no idea."

"What's that mean?"

"It means she and Thalia decided to go after Zeke. They were gone when I woke up in the hospital earlier."

"They went after Zeke? _Alone?_" Grover shook his head. "Guess that explains what you're doing back in the country. You're gonna find her, right?"

"That's the plan. I just need to figure out how. Knowing her, I doubt she's dumb enough to answer any calls while she's here. Or use her real name, for that matter."

Grover looked thoughtful for a minute, absently tugging at his scraggly goatee. "You could go to an expert," he suggested. When Percy frowned, not following, he went on, "Silena. I'm sure she'd be able to find her."

Immediately Percy shook his head. "I don't want to involve any—"

"Trust me, she'd want you to," Grover argued. "She was… Well, she wasn't happy when the news spread that you were dead. None of us were. Especially your dad." His eyebrows angled and his gaze drifted downward. "When he told us… I swear, I'd never seen him so angry."

With a guilty pang, Percy thought back on the last conversation he'd had with his father, Parker Grace—when he'd warned him of Zeke's intentions and ordered him to run. He'd argued at first, but after seeing his father's desperation to keep him safe, he'd had no choice but to give in and do as he asked. If it hadn't been for his father's concern, he never would have left and his uncle probably would have succeeded in having him killed months ago. And now, here he was, back in the States and about to go after the very person who so wanted him dead and had the power and connections to make it happen. When this was all over, he'd have some serious explaining to do—assuming he survived it all, that is.

"Anyway," Grover said after a moment of tense silence, "you can trust Silena."

Percy considered this quietly for a long few seconds. He wanted as few people to know he was here as possible, but he did have to admit that his chances of finding Annabeth and Thalia on his own were slim. Silena Beauregard was her mother's second-in-command—surpassed only by Aimee herself in tracking and espionage within Olympus. If anyone could locate Annabeth without alerting Zeke, it was her.

"You really think so?" he finally asked, his voice sounding leaden and tired.

"I know so," Grover said with conviction. "You should stay here tonight. I'll give her a call and tell her you'll be over in the morning. Her sister's in town, but that shouldn't be a problem. From what I've seen, she's trustworthy, too."

Percy nodded in slightly uncertain agreement. He'd met Silena's sister once before, back in college during the few months he and Silena had gone out. Their parents were divorced, and though her sister did sometimes visit she lived most of the time with their father in California. He hadn't really gotten to know her well, but he trusted Grover's judgment, and if he said she was trustworthy, then he supposed that would have to be good enough.

"Alright, fine," he conceded. "Thanks for your help. Both of you. I really appreciate it."

Grover waved a hand and Juniper smiled. "What good are friends if you can't use 'em to hide from a crazy, murderous uncle, eh?" Grover joked.

Percy laughed, wincing when Juniper swatted his arm and snapped, "Hold still!"

"So how've you guys been holding up?" he asked. "I really wanted to crash the wedding, but Annabeth was way against coming back for anything."

"Which was probably for the best," Grover said wryly. "Not that we don't wish you could've been there—somehow I ended up with Paul as my best man instead of you and Juniper can attest to how well _that_ went." He cringed as though remembering a terrifying experience and Percy grinned as Juniper giggled in amusement. He could just imagine Paul Archer working the entire thing out to make himself the center of attention rather than the bride and groom. "But regardless, it would've been way too dangerous for you to be there. I guess we all see that now. Since then, though, we've been doing pretty well. Nothing too major going down in the organization—which I suppose makes sense after tonight. Zeke must have been busy looking for you."

"Well, if we're lucky, he'll lay off after the London hospital incident," Percy said, staring at the ceiling with a distinct twinge of anger—which was becoming more and more frequent every time his uncle crossed his mind. "I'm pretty sure nobody saw me get out in the confusion. Hopefully this time he really does think I'm dead."

"If you don't start taking better care of yourself," Juniper said pointedly as she finished re-stitching his wound and began unraveling a roll of gauze, "you will be." Her eyes drifted up sharply to meet his and he gave her a weak smile in an effort to apologize and thank her at the same time. She must have gotten the message, because her green eyes brightened and she offered a tiny smile in return.

Once she'd bandaged the cut in Percy's stomach and replaced her supplies, Juniper offered to make him some tea before bed while Grover went to call Silena. He told her not to bother, and after completely ignoring him and making some anyway (she set it on the coffee table along with six slices of a loaf of organic zucchini bread she'd baked that morning) she and Grover left the room to return to bed, leaving Percy to lie in the quiet darkness and wonder exactly why he and Annabeth seemed to make such a powerful combined magnet for trouble—and how they were going to make it out of this mess unscathed.

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**Next chapter'll be more exciting, I promise. Well, if I ever get it done, that is. Hey, maybe a few extra reviews would push my motivation?**

**Later days!**

**-oMM**


	7. Wired

**Hoo boy, this chapter took me WAY too long to write. I literally just finished it like half an hour ago and just barely had time to edit (I get off work in ten minutes, haha). I'm not sure why it took so long, to be honest. Sure, it's kind of long and there's action, but it's not phenomenal. I don't know, I'm just off my game lately, I guess.**

**Hopefully this is at least somewhat worth the wait. Thanks for the reviews! Enjoy!**

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We can live **forever** / If you've got the _time_

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That night, the four of them went back to Reyna and Leo's house in MorningSide to get a couple hours' rest and pick up a few things before setting off. Thalia and Annabeth were both given guest rooms, but when everyone turned in for the night Annabeth sat awake, knowing she ought to get some sleep but also knowing there was no way her mind was poised to do so. Her body was already far too pumped with adrenaline just knowing that in a few hours' time they'd be on their way to Chicago to take revenge on Ezekiel Grace—who, little had she known before, was in fact the CEO of a major company. Just mulling that over left her brain too buzzed to fully relax. So after about half an hour of trying in vain to settle down, she got up and left the bedroom, retreating quietly downstairs to kill some time by having a look around the house.

It might have been impolite to snoop around and scope the place out, but after having been employed as an assassin Annabeth was more or less jaded to that sort of thing. She didn't feel guilty or nervous as she strode into the den at the foot of the stairs and inspected the furniture, again marveling at the size of the television set mounted on the wall. Against the back wall was the entrance to the dining room, which was furnished with a rectangular dining table that looked clean but had the distinct feel of rare use—perhaps it was strictly for larger parties, like if Leo and Reyna ever had company. Above the table was a slightly dusty crystal chandelier—pretty but not overly-impressive, just like the outside of the house. In a cabinet to the left of the table was stacked a collection of old-looking porcelain china, probably a family heirloom judging by the combination of age and well-keeping. Across the room was an oak buffet display table, and beside that an open doorway into the kitchen.

Folding her arms against the nighttime chill, Annabeth stepped aimlessly through the kitchen until her eyes landed on the door she'd earlier assumed led down to the basement. She made her way over and clutched the knob, but when she tried to turn it, it wouldn't budge more than a fraction of an inch. She tried again, but got the same result. It must have been locked. She could probably break it open, but while walking around the house didn't cross any privacy lines, she was pretty sure forcing open a locked door might toe a few.

"Curious?" a voice suddenly asked, and Annabeth turned her head to see Thalia standing nearby with her arms crossed and an eyebrow raised in amusement.

"Can't help it," Annabeth admitted with a chuckle. "It used to be my job."

Thalia nodded toward the basement door. "Leo's got a workshop down there," she said. "I saw him bringing stuff up earlier and I asked Reyna about it. She said he usually makes his stuff at the shop, but this place is a sort of back-up."

Noticing her eyebrows crease just a bit in consternation, Annabeth asked, "What's wrong?"

Thalia didn't answer right away. She sighed heavily and stepped past Annabeth into the kitchen, dropping into a chair at the table. "I've just been thinking… If I hadn't told Reyna everything back then, all those years ago… Maybe she never would've gotten involved in all this."

Annabeth sat down across from her and rested her elbows on the table. "You mean the arms dealing."

"I've got nothing against criminals as a principle, obviously," Thalia went on. "Just look at my family and my background. And Leo seems like a nice guy—if a little on the annoying side." She rolled her eyes and shook her head. "But… I guess it's just sort of surprising to find out that even though I haven't seen her in so long, Reyna's been a part of this world the whole time. Here I thought we'd be putting her out by asking for a place to stay, but the last thing I expected was for her to _help_ us—for her to already have her own reason to hate my father, a reason that's got nothing to do with me. I just feel like… Like if I'd never told her the truth, she'd never have gotten into this and she wouldn't have a reason to go with us."

"She doesn't seem like the type of person to dwell on the past," Annabeth pointed out. "She seems like… she's comfortable with the way things are. I really doubt she blames you for anything."

Thalia sat back in her chair and glanced at the ceiling. "I know, you're probably right. But I still just feel responsible, know you? And if anything happens to her, it'll be my fault. It's stupid, but I can't stop thinking about it."

"Well, you've got to," Annabeth said flatly, prompting Thalia to look down at her with a slight frown. "You're right, it _is_ stupid. We're about to challenge your father—the leader of the largest and most dangerous criminal organization in the country. We can _not_ afford distractions like this, you know we can't. It doesn't matter how we're all involved—the point is that we are. We've got a team who's serious about this job. So you'd better just accept it, because you won't be doing anyone any favors by doubting. Reyna knows what she signed on for—all you need to do is trust her."

Thalia breathed out heavily, the corner of her mouth lifting in a wry smile. "It's a good thing you're here to keep us all on track, then. Guess we'll need someone level-headed if we're gonna pull this off."

"Damn right," Annabeth agreed with a grin. Leaning back and stretching her arms, she said, "So, you as totally unable to sleep as I am?"

Thalia nodded. "Completely wired. Hang in the den and check out that huge TV?"

"Sounds good to me."

So for the next couple hours, Annabeth and Thalia sat in the den and watched pointless, middle-of-the-night television programming, talking aimlessly about anything but the mission they were about to take on. Somehow, even though they were in someone else's house, the casual company made the whole thing seem less real, like this could've been any relaxing day back home instead of the night before their trip to Chicago to meet Zeus. With the less urgent atmosphere, Annabeth's mind traveled back to her fiancé, who she hoped was recovering well back in London. She wondered if he'd found her letter, and hid a smile when she pictured his face. He'd be angry, undoubtedly. But she hoped he had enough sense to heed her warning and wait for her to come back. Because when she did, they wouldn't have to fear his uncle any longer. And that, in her opinion, would be well worth the wait and the effort it would take to make it happen.

About an hour before sunrise, Leo and Reyna came downstairs and seemed unsurprised to find Thalia and Annabeth up and about. Together the four of them ate a quick breakfast, more on principle than because any of them were actually hungry, before gathering their things and meeting in the garage.

Last night when they returned to the house, Annabeth had only gotten the briefest glance at the garage on their way inside, but walking in that morning with more time to spare she noticed that it was easily the most cluttered room of the house that she'd seen. Shelves and wooden tables lined the back and left walls, piled messily with tools and equipment—a lot of which Annabeth couldn't name or guess a purpose for. Stacks of cardboard and raw metal sat against the tables, leaving little walking room between them. Most of the space was cleared around Reyna's car, the silver Mustang, given that she drove it almost daily (she'd given Thalia and Annabeth a ride home in it the previous night). The other car, which Annabeth could now see was a shiny, black four-door Maserati Ghibli with narrow, bronze stripes along the sides, was more surrounded by clutter but looked to be in perfect condition, almost like it was brand-new. Annabeth assumed it must have belonged to Leo, but he apparently preferred not to drive it often as he'd left his shop last night in a dark red F-250, which was now parked outside.

Stepping last into the garage, Reyna pulled the door closed and pressed a button on the device hanging by the doorframe, and the double garage door slid noisily open. Assuming they'd be taking Reyna's car again, Annabeth started toward it but stopped when Leo climbed around a pile of clutter and pulled a key fob from his pocket, pressing a button on it and prompting the lights on the Ghibli to flash twice in quick succession.

"Leave the trunk clear for now," he said as he opened the rear driver's side door and slid a drawstring bag under the front seat. "We can rearrange after we stock up." As he pulled open the front door and dropped into the driver's seat, Annabeth exchanged a brief glance with Thalia (noting the tiny glint of apprehension in her eyes) before following her around Reyna's car and trying not to knock anything over.

As Thalia ducked into the backseat of the Maserati and scooted across to give Annabeth room, her eyebrows shot up and she muttered, "Whoa." Annabeth slid in beside her and had to stop herself from saying the same thing. She'd never been particularly into cars, but even she had to admit that this one was impressive. The seats were upholstered in deep crimson leather and were quite possibly the most comfortable car seats she'd ever experienced. The navigation and control panels were impossibly clean and decorated with so many buttons and screens that Annabeth couldn't even imagine what some of them could be for. There was a second, unlabeled lever beside the gear shift between the two front seats that fit in well but was clearly not standard-issue. She wondered for a second if Leo had modified the car—and then realized that it was probably stupid to wonder that at all. He owned an auto customization shop and kept a mint-condition, foreign racing-grade sedan in his garage. Clearly this thing had had some work done on it.

"Nice, huh?" Leo said with a grin, wiggling his eyebrows as he twisted around and caught the looks on their faces. He faced front and pressed the ignition button as Reyna sat down in the passenger seat and pulled the door closed with a dull _snap_, and the engine hummed steadily to life.

"Let's just get going," Reyna said, eyes going to the dark, early morning sky outside. "The sooner we're on the road, the fewer chances we'll have for trouble."

-0-0-0-

Leo's storage facility turned out to be a wide, one-story warehouse in the industrial district of Detroit, where the buildings were very spread out. There was a single door at the east front end and a double-door at the west, but rather than use either of them they drove around and parked in the back by what looked like a truck entrance. When they got out of the car, Leo walked up and snapped open a panel on the building wall that revealed a glowing input relay. He punched a long and complicated-looking code into the number pad and then placed his hand flat on the scanner, before a high-pitched beep sounded and a section of the back wall slid upward like a gigantic garage door. Leo jerked his head toward it and the others followed him inside.

When he switched on the lights, Annabeth looked around to see that the warehouse was filled with rows of what looked like oversized filing cabinets. Each one was about ten feet tall and length-wise ran the width of the building.

"So… how much opposition are we expecting, here?" Leo asked, eyes scanning the rows of storage units.

"I don't know," Annabeth said truthfully. "If we're lucky we might be able to get to Zeus without alerting the entire organization. But luck hasn't really been good to us before so I haven't got much reason to expect it to start now. Either way, I'm sure we can count on some sort of guard to stand between us and him. It'd be best to go prepared to fight."

"Are _all_ of these full of guns?" Thalia asked in mild disbelief, leaning sideways to inspect the far side of the room with raised eyebrows.

"Of course not," Leo responded with a quirky smile, as though that had been a rather silly question. Annabeth wasn't surprised. The place was huge, after all. That would certainly be a _lot_ of weaponry.

Not a second later, however, Leo went on to explain, "I've also got mod accessories like scopes, blade apparatuses, magazine expansion hookups—plus more ammo than you'd ever need, then there're the long- and short-range explosives—you know, hand grenades, proximity mines, firing dynamite, couple stalks of dry TNT, liquid corrosive—we should grab some of that, definitely, super useful—that section back there's got tech, night-vision shades, heat and motion sensors, tracking devices, the best-concealed recorder-radios you'll find _anywhere_, auto-translator chips—though those are still in beta—"

"I think they get it," Reyna cut him off wryly when it didn't seem he'd be finishing anytime soon. He gave a half-grin and shrugged.

"Wow, uh…" Thalia responded, blinking in mild surprise. "Okay, well, seeing as we're trying to infiltrate the Willis Tower and not turn it to jelly, let's just stick with the basics."

"If you say so," Leo said in a tone that implied his disagreement with that statement. He stepped past Annabeth and Thalia and started down a row between two cabinets, all three women following after him. The large metal drawers stacked among the columns, Annabeth observed as they went, were about three feet tall and six feet wide, and each bore a lock and keypad beneath an embossed 3-digit number. Leo stopped about two-thirds of the way down the column and drew the key ring from the pocket of his jeans, separating a small, silver key from the others and sliding it into the lock on a drawer in the middle of the three rows on their left. He punched in five numbers on the keypad and the drawer clicked open an inch, allowing him to reach in and slide it out the rest of the way. The space inside was split into slim compartments, each of which held a gun save for the two on the right which were stacked with replacement magazines. When Leo pulled one out and flipped it in his hand, Annabeth cocked her head to the side and examined it, recognizing it as your basic .45 machine handgun.

Leo retrieved an ammunition cartridge from the drawer and slid it into the gun's grip with a _snap_ before grinning at the others, his dark eyes gleaming like fire, and saying, "Let's get started."

-0-0-0-

Annabeth was impressed with Leo's merchandise. Even without taking the wide array of variety into account, the metalwork and mechanics alone were remarkable. Every surface felt smooth and clean beneath her touch, and even the larger weapons were surprisingly lightweight for the specifications he reported them to have. Annabeth had handled enough guns in her life to recognize expert workmanship when she saw it, and Leo's work was exactly that. She was glad she and Thalia had lucked into meeting him before they'd set off after Zeus.

It turned out that the trunk of Leo's Maserati had a hidden compartment beneath a false bottom, which was why he'd told them to leave the trunk clear earlier. They'd almost finished loading it with equipment and were busy filling the last of their empty duffel bags when a sudden and loud banging sounded from the east front end of the storehouse—three times in quick succession, like someone pounding on the metal door.

Annabeth looked up from the drawer she was crouched in front of with a startled frown. "What was that?"

"I don't know," Leo answered, standing up slowly and narrowing his eyes in the direction of the sound. "There shouldn't be anyone here this early. I'll go check it out, you guys finish this." He turned and tossed Reyna his key ring, adding, "Make sure you lock up." Then he jogged to the end of the row and turned left, disappearing from sight as the banging repeated itself.

"Who do you think it is?" Thalia wondered, glancing at Reyna as they continued loading ammunition into their bag.

"I don't know," Reyna responded, eyebrows creased tightly together in vague apprehension. "There are others who come here—the few people who work for him, raw suppliers, you know. But he'd know if there was a delivery today and, like he said, it's really early…"

Annabeth exchanged a glance with Thalia. "You don't think there's a problem, do you?"

Reyna shook her head and sighed shortly. "I'm sure it's nothing. Just to be safe, though, let's hurry up and get this stuff packed up." She zipped the bag closed and slung it over her shoulder, then slid the drawer back into place and turned the key in the opening, locking it tight.

As they all climbed to their feet, Thalia picked up the bag beside her and said, "Hopefully this doesn't delay us too much. It'd be nice to miss the worst of the traffic in—" The rest of her sentence was suddenly drowned beneath the interruption of two loud, unmistakable _bang_s—gunfire.

"What the—?" Annabeth stammered in surprise, ducking her head reflexively even though she was surrounded on two sides by ten-foot cabinets. She whipped around as another gunshot sounded, followed quickly by the _clang_ of metal against metal.

"Where's that coming from?" Thalia demanded in a harsh whisper as Reyna started down the column in the direction in which Leo had disappeared. Annabeth made to follow her but stopped when she heard a sliding squeak and the sound of footsteps behind her. She and Thalia spun around to see Leo racing down the column toward them, an angry expression on his face.

"Keys!" he called to them in a low voice.

Reyna stepped forward. "Leo, what—?"

"_Now!_" he interrupted her as a male voice shouted from nearby, "We ain't walkin' with a 'no' this time, Valdez!" Reyna breathed in sharply and threw the key ring to Leo, who snatched it out of the air and said, "This way!" as he ran past them. Startled, Annabeth followed him without question, shooting a glance over her shoulder but thankfully seeing no movement. When they reached the end of the column, Leo leaned out and looked both ways before darting around to the right and ducking into another column two rows down, all three girls on his heels.

"Okay, what's going on?" Reyna demanded in a whisper as they ground to a halt halfway down the column. "That wasn't the police, was it?"

"No, it's not the police," Leo responded shortly as he dropped to his knees, shoving his key into a drawer on the bottom row and jamming some numbers on the keypad. "It's Venti. Friggin' morons can't take a hint. I swear, one of these days, man…"

Reyna cursed under her breath and Annabeth asked quietly, "Who's Venti?"

"A local gang," Reyna replied, reaching for the duffel bag Annabeth had been carrying and zipping it open. "They tried to make a deal two weeks ago, but Leo wouldn't sell to them." She pulled two .45 ACPs from the bag and handed them both to her boyfriend before retrieving a third and cocking it.

"They're bad news," Leo explained as he stuck the guns in the back waistband of his jeans and pulled open the drawer in front of him, grabbing weapon parts out of it and assembling them alarmingly fast. "Not the kind of clients I typically go for. Granted I'm not what you'd call a model citizen myself, but you gotta draw the line somewhere, right? And watchin' this place just so they can barge in at six in the morning and pull a gun on me sure as hell isn't earnin' 'em any amity points in my book."

Again a voice yelled something a little ways away, and Reyna eyed Leo seriously. "They didn't hurt you, did they?"

Leo paused to shoot her a skeptical look. "Those idiots? Yeah, right. They got aim worse than anything I've ever seen. One of the reasons I won't deal to them, actually."

"So what do we do?" Annabeth asked, grabbing an ACP herself and checking the grip, eyes wandering to each end of their column.

Leo slammed the drawer shut and straightened the weapon in his hands, allowing Annabeth to indentify it as some kind of heavy-looking automatic machine rifle. "Well, when diplomacy fails," he said with a wry grin as he snapped an ammunition clip into the loading mechanism and pulled the cocking lever, "you drive the point home. One way or another."

Annabeth smiled. She was liking this guy more and more by the hour.

Without another word, Leo hefted his rifle and stood, jerking his head to his right and leading the way down the column. He stopped a few yards from the end of the cabinets and said quietly, "Let's use their stupidity against them." Gesturing to Annabeth and Thalia to stand back, he exchanged a nod with Reyna, who slid her gun into her belt, moved forward, and flattened her back against the very end of the cabinet to their right. Leo dropped to a stable crouch and braced the end of the rifle against his shoulder, leaning down to check his sight before pulling a small, silver sphere from one of his pockets. He tossed it up once and caught it, before releasing it and letting it roll across the floor toward the back hallway. A second after it passed out of their column it suddenly emitted a high-pitched beeping noise.

If the device was meant to draw attention, it worked. Immediately someone shouted from off to the right and gunfire blared as a few wild bullets flew past their column. A voice called, "He's here, I saw something!" before hurried footsteps began to draw closer. As Leo smiled almost evilly, Annabeth wondered with incredulity, _How stupid can you get?_

Apparently pretty stupid, because a second later two men appeared around the corner, both with pistols hanging lax at their sides. "Hi-ya," Leo greeted them shortly as they scrambled to raise their guns, but they weren't anywhere near fast enough. Leo opened fire and mowed them down with barely an eighth of his clip. A third man who'd just arrived ducked hurriedly back around the corner, but the instant he pivoted the bend and held out his gun Reyna grabbed his arm and yanked him forward, swinging a leg around his knees and disrupting his balance. He flailed and tried to swing at her, but she ducked him easily and returned a kick at his ribs, smacked him beneath the chin with the palm of her hand, then turned and once again gripped his arm, flipping him over her shoulder and onto his back with a growl. She jammed him in the face with her wrist and he was out cold.

"Three down," Leo said, grinning at Reyna as she stood and brushed her hands together. "Four to go."

Reyna arched an eyebrow. "They brought seven guys just to try and steal from you?"

Leo smirked. "If that was their goal," he scoffed, lifting his rifle and getting to his feet, "they should've brought more."

Something caught Annabeth's ear and she spun around, raising her handgun and holding it steady, trained eyes combing the shadows at the end of their row.

"What?" Thalia asked in a low voice.

"I thought I heard…" She trailed off and tensed as a flash of movement snatched her attention. Without the slightest hesitation she fired twice and was rewarded with a shout of pain as someone darted back around the end of the cabinet and out of sight. More gunshots sounded behind her and she shot a glance over her shoulder to see Leo duck quickly back into their row.

"Time to split," he said, dropping his rifle and pulling both handguns from behind him. He nodded toward the man Annabeth had just shot at. "You guys take the Lone Ranger, and see if you can find Tonto. Let's clean up and clear out." With that he turned and fired both guns in alternating succession at something down the back hall to the right before taking off at a run, Reyna on his heels.

Immediately Annabeth headed quickly in the opposite direction, back down the column of cabinets with Thalia barely a step behind her. The man at the end of the row pivoted the corner and Annabeth and Thalia jerked to either side as they heard gunfire, but as Leo had said, the guys were terrible shots. Annabeth was pretty sure the bullets' paths were nowhere near them. Thalia raised her gun and returned fire, forcing the guy to hide from them again and give them more time to approach. In an impressive display of either unrelenting daring or incredible stupidity, the man ducked around the corner once more when they were almost upon him—giving Annabeth a perfect opportunity to bury three bullets in his chest. He flailed backward onto the hard ground, gun flying from his hand.

After first checking to make sure the coast was clear, Annabeth and Thalia ducked out of their column and ran along the front hall at the end of the rows of cabinets, glancing down each one and watching for movement. At the sound of gunfire just ahead of them, they veered hurriedly into a column between two cabinets in evasion. A second later, loud footsteps announced the arrival of their attacker as a man slid into view and skidded to a halt facing them. He'd barely stopped before Thalia wrapped an arm around his outstretched wrists and pulled, causing him to drop his gun with a grunt. She drove an elbow into his gut and he hunched forward, throwing a wild swing at her that missed by a mile. She stomped hard on his foot and turned quickly around, clenching a fist and slugging him hard in the face. Annabeth winced at the audible _crack_ as he was thrown backwards, dazed and groaning.

Thalia shook her hand with a grimace. "Ouch… Been a while since I've been in a fight."

"Good to know you haven't forgotten everything," Annabeth said appreciatively.

She turned and began a quick survey of the area, stopping when once again something piqued her auditory senses. It was faint at first, but she could hear the distinct sound of police sirens coming from outside.

"Great," Thalia said bitterly, proving that she'd noticed it as well.

Rapid footsteps approached them from behind and Annabeth spun quickly around, raising her gun, but it was only Leo and Reyna. They must have gotten rid of the last two intruders, because the shouting and weapon fire had ceased.

"Detroit PD!" a voice called from outside the nearby door, accompanied by a short series of dull thumping.

Leo cursed unpleasantly as he and Reyna slowed and his eyes scanned the wall behind Thalia as though he could magically see through it. "Cops—you've gotta be kidding me," he growled. "When this is over, I'm sending the rest of Venti a strongly-worded letter. The kind that explodes."

"What do we do?" Reyna asked evenly.

"I'll try and get rid of 'em," Leo decided when the pounding repeated. "You guys grab the goods and finish loading up the car. And, uh… be ready for a quick getaway. You know, just in case." He gave them a less-than-reassuring grin before darting past them toward the east front door. Thalia rolled her eyes and breathed out shortly as the three of them hurried off in the opposite direction. After the creak of an opening door, Annabeth heard Leo say lightly, "Morning, officer. What can I do for you?" and a male voice reply, "We got a report of gunshots in the area…" before they'd gone too far and the rest of the conversation became muffled.

They quickly retrieved the bags they'd left upon the intruders' arrival and stowed them in the trunk of Leo's car. Reyna replaced the false floor and they threw the more-legal remainder of their belongings on top of it before slamming the trunk shut. At once Reyna turned and strode back into the warehouse and Annabeth and Thalia followed after her, listening hard for any sign of activity. Halfway along the back hallway, Reyna collided suddenly with Leo, who'd been hurrying down a column from the front of the building.

"We gotta go," he said quickly as he grabbed his girlfriend's arm to steady her. "Now."

"What happened?" Annabeth asked sharply. "Where's the cop?"

"On the ground by the guy you two knocked out. Let's jet before—" He broke off and spun around as a loud _bang_ signified the east front door being slammed open and a chorus of voices followed. Leo cringed. "Before exactly that happens. Come on!" They set off at a run but hadn't even reached the garage entrance when Leo ground to an unsteady halt, let out a kind of frustrated growl, and said, "Wait, there's something I need to take care of. You guys go, I'll be right behind you!"

"Leo!" Reyna shouted, throwing up her hands in exasperation.

But he'd already set off in the other direction, calling after them, "Just go!" and the sounds of activity in the warehouse informed them that they didn't have much choice but to oblige. Clicking her tongue and wondering what was so important, Annabeth turned and led the way out of the building through the back entrance.

The sun was starting to rise by now, and though it hadn't peeked up over the distant trees and buildings yet the sky was considerably brighter than it had been when they'd left Reyna and Leo's house a little while ago. They'd planned to be on the road by sunrise, headed for Chicago. Leave it to street gangs and policemen to complicate things.

"They're coming around back!" Thalia hissed urgently as she leaned around the corner of the building and peered through the shadows. "What should we do?"

Annabeth bit her lip and breathed out in a huff. They were on an assassination mission. Not exactly legal given that it wasn't government-sanctioned. A police shootout, though, was entirely different territory. And yet she didn't completely relish the idea of being taken in—not when the CIA was still after her. Which meant there was nothing to do but fight back and run—two habits she'd been hoping to drop. Oh, well. This was her life, it seemed.

"I don't know about you," she finally answered Thalia, pulling the handgun from her belt and checking how many shots she had left, "but I'm going to Chicago. Nothing's gonna stop us here."

Thalia nodded, a sort of resigned agreement on her face. "Can't argue with that." She shot another glance around the corner. "Get ready. Three incoming."

Annabeth stood beside Thalia in the shadow of the building, waiting and wondering if the cops approaching had seen them or were routinely surrounding the building. The question was answered for her when the first of them rounded the bend and Thalia darted forward to elbow him in the face, catching him clearly by surprise. As he stumbled backward a second uniformed man ducked around him from behind and aimed a gun at Thalia, but Annabeth was faster. She lifted her own gun in both hands and immediately returned fire. One bullet missed the man by a centimeter and the other embedded itself in his shoulder, causing him to topple over backwards. Thalia drove her knee into the first cop's stomach and smacked the back of his head with her elbow when he doubled over, knocking him out. A third policeman had barely pointed his gun before Annabeth shot him once in the chest and once in the leg.

A voice behind them shouted, "Police! Drop your weapons!" and Annabeth spun around to see another pair of officers rushing toward them with guns held at the ready. She hesitated, trying to calculate whether she could outshoot them in time, when Reyna suddenly stood from behind the car and fired the handgun in her grip, sending a bullet into one cop's arm. Annabeth took advantage of the moment of confusion to shoot the same guy in the shoulder, knocking him on his back, as the other one stopped and turned his aim on Reyna. He fired twice and she ducked before leaping up and vaulting off the hood of Leo's car, spinning in midair and kicking the cop shooting at her in the side of the head. As he fell, she landed beside him on the pavement and drove her hand against the nape of his neck, causing him to fall still with a groan.

"Wow," Annabeth said, impressed. Reyna stood and gave her a wry smile before snapping her gaze to the open garage entrance at the sounds of shouting and weapon fire. Not a second later, Leo sprinted into view, ducking instinctively as bullets flew by and sliding in the thin layer of snow that covered the back lot. He wasn't holding a gun, but something was gripped tightly in his left hand.

"Car, now!" he yelled to them without slowing down. "MOVE!" The angry look on his face told Annabeth not to argue. She and Thalia crossed the lot and threw themselves into the backseat as Reyna leapt back over the hood and made a grab for the passenger-side door.

"Leo, what's wrong?" Reyna demanded as Leo slammed his door shut and started the car. She was frowning intently at the look on his face. "I mean other than the obvious. What were you—?"

"When I tell you," Leo cut her off through gritted teeth as he shoved the metal object he was holding into her hands, "press that button."

Reyna's eyes darted from him to the object, then over his shoulder toward the warehouse. "You're gonna—?"

"They called it in. No choice now. I can't—" He broke off and looked sharply out his window as two more officers emerged from the rear building entrance and yelled something Annabeth couldn't hear. "Hold on!" Leo told them before he slammed his foot on the gas pedal and gave the steering wheel a hard turn, thrusting them into motion. Annabeth slid sideways across the seat as the car sped around the side driveway and angled out onto the road. She had a brief glimpse of flashing red and blue as two of the three squad cars parked out front rolled into motion behind them, giving chase onto the empty, early-morning street.

"Reyna, now!" Leo ordered, and Reyna gave him a desperate, disbelieving sort of look before squeezing the device in her hands. The deafening explosion that ensued made Annabeth flinch in surprise and throw her hands over her ears as the ground rumbled briefly beneath them and the car swerved a foot or so to the left. Alarmed, she spun in her seat and stared through the back window to see the walls of the warehouse they'd just fled cave inward, smoke and fire rising into the slowly-brightening sky.

"You just…" she muttered in disbelief.

"We've still got problems," Thalia pointed out urgently. "Like our two tailgaters, for instance."

"That we can handle," Leo said, his voice oddly tight. "Hang on to something."

This time Annabeth took his advice and quickly fastened her seatbelt. And it was a good thing she did—without a second's hesitation Leo reached for the second lever beside the gear shift, the one Annabeth had found suspicious earlier, and pushed it sideways to reveal two silver-blue buttons on the panel beneath it. He punched the one on top and again grabbed the lever, this time yanking it straight back, his other hand tightening its grip on the steering wheel.

The effect was immediate. The Maserati surged forward with a _thrum _as though something massive had hurled it ahead from behind, accelerating at an alarming speed so that the buildings and trees on either side of them were reduced to a gray blur. The sounds of police sirens dwindled and the red-and-blue lights began to fade, leaving them with only the early, winter dawn light.

After about twenty seconds, they slowed back to cruising speed and Annabeth allowed her body to relax, not realizing she'd been holding her breath. Leo made a sharp left turn onto a slimmer road between more tightly-cramped buildings and Annabeth turned around, once again peering through the back window and noticing that their police escort seemed to have vanished.

"What was that?" Thalia asked, and Annabeth glanced over to see her checking to make sure her body was still intact.

"Nitrous oxide," Leo answered, eyes on the road and a stony expression on his face. "Modified engine. Comes in handy for a quick getaway. I've only got one more tank, though, so we should probably try and lie low from now on."

"Why'd you blow that place up?" Annabeth wondered. "If you want to 'lie low' there had to be a better way than _that_."

"I know!" Leo said, his tone turning almost miserable as he banged his head on the steering wheel. "I _know_. Trust me, that was the _last_ thing I wanted to do. Man—there was millions of dollars worth of equipment in there!" He gave a kind of strangled yell and shook his head. "But I didn't have a choice. The place isn't registered in my name so I doubt they'll be after me because of this. But if they'd had a good poke around inside, there'd'a been plenty to pin on me. And I'd rather lose all my work than get thrown back in jail."

A heavy silence settled over the four of them as Annabeth thought back on her conversation with Thalia early that morning. Thalia felt responsible for involving Reyna when they were kids—for getting her accustomed to danger and crime. Now, Annabeth wondered if maybe she'd had a point—if maybe she herself was partly responsible for all of this as well. True, she'd never met Leo and Reyna before the previous day. And yes, they were already involved in illegal business without any interference on her part. But now, because of her and Thalia and their crusade against Zeus, they'd already sacrificed something huge. And who knew how much more they'd be forced to give up before this was all over?

"I'm sorry," Annabeth said quietly after a moment. "You're doing this to help us, and… So far it's only hurting you."

"It's okay, Annabeth, really," Reyna said matter-of-factly. She didn't smile, but oddly that only made Annabeth believe her more. "Leo's just ticked. He'll cool off. We both want to do this, whatever it takes."

"Hey, long as I get to take it out on the big guy," Leo agreed, "I don't care how much shit we go through. Nothing's blockin' out the light at the end of _that_ tunnel."

Annabeth shook her head with a wry chuckle. "Have I mentioned how much I like you guys?"

"Back at'cha, babe," Leo said. Reyna rolled her eyes.

When they turned into an empty gas station and pulled around to the side of the building, Annabeth sat up straight and looked around. "Where are we?"

"Pit stop," Leo answered. "Hey, do me a favor and lift up the compartment under your feet."

As he killed the ignition and got out of the car, Annabeth did as she was asked. She bent over and slid her fingers along the leather interior until she found a tiny, indented hinge. Pulling it upward revealed a small, rectangular compartment in which sat a haphazard stack of differently-colored license plates.

"You're really prepared for anything, aren't you?" she said appreciatively when her door opened from the outside and Leo crouched beside her.

He grinned, long-fingered hands reaching out to shift through the plates. "Hey, you never know when you might need a little camouflage." He wiggled his eyebrows and Annabeth chuckled, shaking her head. Somehow, she was glad to realize that even though the loss of so much of his work had been technically her fault, he had no intention of holding it against her, just as Reyna had said. She thought of what she'd told Thalia hours go—that it didn't matter how each of them was involved, only that they were. Their two new companions would definitely be a major help on this trip—and maybe, she couldn't help but think, she could even secure herself two new friends.

"So, what do you guys think?" Leo asked, eyes lifting from the plates and sliding across all three women with amusement. "Townies from Vermont or road-trippers from New Mexico?"

* * *

**Well, that was fun, eh? God, if this chapter took me so long I'm scared to see how long chapter 9 is gonna take me... It's the next big action scene and by my outline should be longer and nuttier than this one... Ughhh, haha.**

**So hopefully I can work around all the junk going on with life lately and pay attention to what's clearly more important, which is fanfiction. Review in the meantime? Later days!**

**-oMM**


	8. Eye

**Hey, guys! Short chapter today, but at least you didn't have to wait long, right?**

**Thanks for the reviews! Enjoy!**

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If you _save_ yourself **tonight**

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When the door of Silena Beauregard's apartment opened the next morning, Percy had the briefest glimpse of a pair of alarmingly-wide blue eyes beneath sleek, dark bangs before two arms shot around his shoulders and pulled him into an inescapable death-hug. He stumbled in alarm and chuckled abashedly. He probably should've seen this coming and taken an extra step backward before knocking on the door.

"Hey," he said lamely.

"_Hey?_" Silena repeated in a harsh tone. She backed up and curled her hand into a fist, driving it against Percy's shoulder with a surprising amount of force for someone her size and making him yelp in pain. "Don't _hey_ me! Why the hell are you here?"

Percy blinked uncertainly. "Didn't Grover call—?"

"No, I know why you're _here_, idiot," she shot back with exasperation. "I _mean_ why are we being told you're dead when that's clearly a little less than true?"

"Hey, I didn't know Zeke was gonna spread the word," he insisted, holding up his hands and taking a step back. Silena was inexplicably scary when she got angry. "It's a long story, okay, just… Can we talk about this inside?"

She huffed and shot him a glare, hands on her hips. "Fine. Come on in." She stepped back out of the way and he walked past her a bit nervously, as though waiting for her to lash out at him if he happened to get close enough. He stopped just inside the door, however, as his eyes caught a flicker of movement across the living room and he looked to see a person step out of one of the bedrooms—a young woman who couldn't have been more than a year or two younger than he was. She was taller than Silena—probably around Annabeth's height—with a slim, curvy build. Her light brown hair fell just past her shoulders—or, most of it did; it was cut in chunky layers and decorated with skinny braids and colored rope-ties. She wore boot-cut jeans and a close-fitted, bright orange cotton shirt that accentuated her sun-kissed skin. The words 'California girl' came immediately to mind, sparking Percy's memory. She looked a bit different from when they'd last met, but this had to be the same girl.

"You remember my sister, Piper," Silena said as she snapped the door closed, confirming his suspicion. "You guys met back when we were still dating."

"Yeah," he said with a brief smile. "Good to see you again."

Piper folded her arms in front of her stomach, a friendly smile gracing her attractive features. "Likewise," she said with a nod. "So you're the one who's dead but not really dead and needs our help."

Percy breathed out shortly in agitation. "Does _everybody_ know about this?" he asked Silena.

"Your dad only told a few of us," Silena replied, shaking her head. "I told Piper because—well, she lives here. I've been filling her in on all the organization details lately. She just formally joined a few months ago," she added in response to Percy's skeptical look.

"What, so you're Olympus now, too?" he asked Piper, who grinned in reply.

"Yup. I've always known about it and all, but last year I finally made the call to move up here and get involved. I was getting crazy-tired of the stupid celebrity life back home with Dad. It was bad enough when people recognized him everywhere we went, but when paparazzi started accosting _me_ I figured it was time to get out. Having a rich, movie-star father is great and all, but I'm more than down for a little secrecy nowadays." She strode lazily across the room and dropped sideways onto a cushy armchair, draping her legs over the armrest. "So," she said impatiently, nodding to Percy, "you're here to tell us a story, right? Let's get to it."

"Uh…" Percy said uncertainly, a little taken aback. Silena giggled airily and shrugged, seating herself neatly on the end of the couch closer to her sister. She held a hand out to the cushion beside her and raised her eyebrows at Percy, indicating that she rather agreed with Piper's decision. Percy didn't have much choice but to oblige.

So for the next few minutes, he recounted to the sisters all the relevant information—why he'd been forced to leave the country, what Zeke had evidently been planning ever since, a full account of both attacks, and how he'd since decided to find Annabeth and Thalia and make sure they didn't do anything stupid without his help. It wasn't, of course, that he didn't trust them—rather he knew for a fact that the Ezekiel Grace they were expecting to see and the Ezekiel Grace they would undoubtedly meet were two different men entirely.

"So now you're asking your ex to help you track down your fiancée?" Piper said with a wry half-grin, arching a thin eyebrow. "Seems pretty tactless to me."

Percy hesitated, not having thought about it like that. His reasoning was pretty simple—to him, Silena wasn't 'his ex'. She was just… his friend. Did it have to be more complicated than that?

Silena laughed at the expression on his face. "She's kidding, genius. We're friends—like family, you and me. Of course I'll help you."

Percy gave a weak laugh. "Right. Thanks."

After having Percy rattle off any information about Annabeth and Thalia that might help to locate them, Silena stood up, stretching her arms. "Alright, just give me a little time. I'll see what I can find out about our missing femme fatales. You two hang tight." She shot them both a winning smile and strode off, disappearing into one of the three bedrooms at the back of the apartment.

At first Percy felt a little awkward being alone with Piper, but he soon found out that she was very laid-back and easy to get along with. They talked aimlessly as they waited for Silena, and during that time he learned that Piper and Silena had, before, had a habit of visiting each other once or twice a year to catch up with their respective divorced parents as well as each other. Piper had attended college in Los Angeles and earned a degree in political science, but rather than hunt for a job in California she'd moved to New York after graduation for a change of scenery and to spend some real time with her sister and mother. She'd decided to join Olympus on her own shortly after—feeling that her political education could be an asset to her mother's intelligence division (she even excitedly showed him the tattoo she'd gotten as a sign of her induction—a pair of feathery dove wings on her lower back to match the same animal her sister had inked over her heart). She was very outspoken about how much she disagreed with the way Zeke had been running the organization in recent years, and was sure to point out that she was all for Percy, Annabeth, and Thalia's aims to take him down. He was a little surprised, to say the least, but at the same time it felt good to have another source of justification for this possible suicide mission.

"Hey, guys!" Silena called out to them after about half an hour. "I think I've got a hit! Come check it out!"

Percy and Piper immediately rose and quickly followed her voice to find her in a sort of study room, with two desks and a few bookshelves against the wall. Like every other room in the apartment, it was impossibly neat and tidy—save, of course, for the desk at which Silena sat, which was cluttered with sheets of paper on which she'd been jotting notes with a red pen. She was leaning toward the desktop computer and squinting at the screen, and when Percy and Piper stepped around behind her they could see a black and white photograph zoomed in on the display.

"Take a look," Silena said, sparing them a brief glance. "The picture's a little blurry, but I'm pretty sure it's what we need." She extended a finger and pointed, and Percy leaned closer over her shoulder to get a better look. The photo was taken in a snowy parking lot outside an unmarked building that was only partially visible. It showed a dark, expensive-looking car and a total of seven people. Four wore police uniforms—though three of these were on the ground near the back of the picture. The other was in the very front left of the photo, his back to the camera. The other three people were dressed normally, and all of them were women. Two stood near the three people on the ground, facing the camera, and the third was beside the car.

"That's her!" Percy realized as his eyes followed Silena's indication toward one of the two women standing by the downed cops. "And that's Thalia, it's got to be. And…" He frowned at the third woman, her face striking a chord in his memory. "I know her. She's… a friend of Thalia's, from when we were kids, I think." After a brief second of recollection, he went on, "Reyna, that's her name. But… I don't get it. Why would she be with them?" He stood up straight, mind buzzing. "Where was this taken?"

"Detroit, Michigan," Silena reported. "Early this morning. I got it from a police report—apparently there was a shootout in the warehouse district. Four unknown suspects escaped in that car and blasted the place to bits, no evidence of whatever was inside."

"_What?_" Percy stammered, alarmed.

"Your girl sure ain't afraid of trouble, is she?" Piper said, sounding amused as she observed the photograph.

"This is all I've been able to find," Silena reported, twisting around in her chair. "The police still haven't caught them, which means they've probably left Detroit. We could wait until something else comes up…" She let her voice trail off, evidently unable to settle on an alternative.

Percy turned and started absently pacing the small room in thought. Four suspects, that was what the police report had said. It seemed that Annabeth and Thalia had pulled together a few sympathizers—Thalia's friend Reyna included, though how that had happened he was considerably lost on. Whatever the story, Silena was right—chances were high they'd left Detroit. And with a team all set, they must have been ready to make their move.

"They're going to Chicago," Percy decided finally, assuming Thalia would know exactly where to look for her father. "They've got to be. I don't know what they were doing at that warehouse in Detroit, but it had to have something to do with preparing for their strike. If they're on the road, they're ready to finish this. I might be able to beat them there if I hop a plane, then maybe I can—"

"No," Silena interrupted firmly as she stood up and blocked his path halfway to the door.

"What do you mean, 'no'? I told you I was going after them. And by the look of things, I don't have a lot of time to waste—"

"I _know_, but this is Zeke we're talking about," Silena persisted, folding her arms. "He's led the organization for decades—and not without reason. He's tough and he's ruthless and we're gonna need some help if we're gonna knock his pedestal out from under him without getting buried in the process."

Percy scowled, annoyed at the continual delays that seemed to keep piling up in his way. He hesitated, though, when Silena's words actually started to sink in. "What—'we'?" he repeated.

She gave a wry smile. "Yes, 'we'. Piper and I are coming with you."

A bit stunned, Percy glanced between Silena and Piper to see expressions of conviction on their faces. He'd come to them for help, sure. But he hadn't expected them to go that far. "Why?"

Silena sighed shortly, dropping her arms. "Because you're completely right about him. Olympus is a family—it's been mine for as long as I can remember. Everything we do is for the betterment of the _family_. But Zeke… He's lost that. He's made it all about him." She shook her head with a momentary grimace. "Percy, he tried to kill you—his own nephew—just because he _thought_ you were a threat to him. He was too scared and paranoid of losing his power to see that he had no reason to be. With him… it's not about the family anymore. He's changed. He isn't the type of leader we need. It's time for him to go, and for somebody new to take over—somebody who understands what family means. Somebody who'll protect us and everything we stand for. That's what we need. And I'm gonna help make it happen."

"You're right," Percy said with an admissive shrug, lowering his gaze. "Sure would be nice to have somebody like that in charge."

Surprisingly, Silena laughed. Percy looked at her with a frown and she said in a misty kind of voice, "Oh, if only we knew someone who was such a perfect fit…" She quirked an eyebrow. "That's what you're thinking, right? We _do,_ moron." She poked his forehead and added matter-of-factly, "_You._"

"Me?" he said in mild alarm, leaning back and swatting her hand away.

"Yes, you. I know you, Percy. You understand what family means—why we need to protect and fight for each other. You're the opposite of Zeke—you don't _want_ power. Which is exactly why you deserve it."

Staring at the carpet, Percy lifted a hand and absently touched the back of his neck—the tips of the black fire branded on his skin. His reason for joining Olympus when he was fifteen, inked on his back as a permanent reminder, following him wherever he went. He thought of his brother, Tyson, a casualty of someone's base desire for revenge. And of his cousin Nico, who'd been just like a brother to him, killed only a year ago in another misguided act of retribution. He knew what it was like to lose somebody important—and he'd promised over and over that he would try as hard as he could to keep it from happening again. Ever since Thalia had moved to London, part of him had known he might someday succeed Zeke as head of the organization. It was strange, though, to hear Silena say it now so simply—like it was nothing but a basic no-brainer. Was it actually time for that to happen?

Percy gave a wry smile after a conspicuously long silence. "So I'm doing exactly what Zeke was afraid I'd do all along. Ironic, huh?" Silena chuckled and Piper cracked a grin. "You guys are sure you know what you're getting into, right?"

Piper rolled her strangely multicolored eyes. "Duh. That's why she said we're gonna need help. We get it."

"Yeah, yeah, alright," Percy conceded, holding up his hands. He realized he didn't really have a right to try and stop them from getting involved, when he'd recently made the same decision himself. "So, got anybody in mind?"

"Charlie, for sure," Silena supplied with a nod. "He's of the same opinion as me, has been for a while. And… there's one other person I can think of who's had major reservations about the way Zeke's been running things…"

"Who?"

Silena looked thoughtful and answered almost like an afterthought, "Tony's successor."

Percy grimaced at the thought. "Bad idea," he said, thinking of Anthony La Rue, their former head encounter strategist, and his daughter—a no-nonsense woman almost as tough and bull-headed as her father. "I know you and Clarisse are good friends, but she and I have never really worked great together. I'm pretty sure that'd cause more problems than it'd solve."

Silena blinked and looked up, shaking her head. "No, no, not Clarisse—though she probably wouldn't be against it. No, I was talking about her half-brother, Frank."

"Frank Zhang?" Percy said with a frown, wracking his memory. "The leader of Sagittarius?" He'd heard a bit about Sagittarius in the past from his father—they were a well-connected Canadian gang that had allied with Olympus a few years ago, when the illegitimate son of Tony La Rue had taken command of the group. Tony and Frank weren't exactly close, but the relation served as foundation for an amiable alliance all the same.

"That's the one," Silena replied. "After Tony died, Clarisse wanted his spot, of course. But your dad requested Frank join and be considered for the job instead. He signed up on a sort of trial basis, but the rest of their division took to him immediately. We've met with him a bunch of times—he fits in great here. Thing is, like I said—he isn't crazy about Zeke. I think he'd be into this plan of yours."

Percy tilted his head to the side as he considered this. So his father had been the one to draw Frank Zhang into the organization. He himself had never met Frank, but if Parker liked him, then that was a good enough reference.

"Alright," he agreed. "If you think you can trust him, let's meet up with him. The sooner the better."

Silena smiled confidently. "I'll set up a meeting. Don't you try and sneak off." She pointed an accusatory finger at him as she stepped aside, finally clearing the way to the door. "We're in this together now. And I'll hold it against you for the rest of your life if you screw it up. Or my life, whichever ends first."

Her grin was friendly and light, but something about her words bothered Percy. As he forced a smile and stepped past her back into the living room, Piper on his heels, he couldn't help dwelling on the mixed feelings he was having about expanding their assassination party. Any of the people he was dragging along could easily be hurt—or worse—as they went after their ruthless leader. And wasn't that exactly the thing he'd always wanted so much to avoid?

But like he'd realized earlier, his family's involvement wasn't his decision. The best he could do for the time being would be to stay focused and on track, and hope like hell it would be enough to see them all through to the end.

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**And the team gets bigger... haha. Pretty soon we'll have everyone together and it'll be time to get a move on. But it's only Chapter 8, right? Still 12 to go. Whatever could I have planned? Heh heh.**

**I honestly have no idea when the next chapter will be up. I've started writing chapter 9, but like I said, it's gonna be very long and very difficult for me to get right. I'm trying something new with it, which I know won't be easy. But if I pull it off, it'll be super awesome. Whatever happens, I can promise you that it'll be action-packed ;)**

**How 'bout a review on your way out? Hopefully I can crank the next chapter out and still make it as awesome as I want it to be. 'Til then, though, later days!**

**-oMM**


	9. Electric

**Whoa MAN does it feel good to be done with this chapter. As you can undoubtedly see by the length, this thing is considerably eventful and was HARD to write. Like REALLY hard. I've been trying to work quickly but not too quickly to where I'm making mistakes or leaving it not as good as it could be. It's a tough balance between speed and quality, at least with how busy I've been lately. But I've edited this a bit and I'm confident in it, so that's a plus. Still, it's kind of nice to have it behind me, haha.**

**So, I really hope you guys like this chapter for all the work that went into it. Thanks for the reviews (though I'm a little disappointed there've been fewer lately... I guess it's partly my fault for spacing my updates. But I promise you guys I'm working on this like every day!), and enjoy!**

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I'll tell you all how the **story**_ ends_ / Where the _good guys_ **die** and the _bad guys_ **win**

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"You really think this is a good idea?"

Annabeth nodded as she peered through the giant, glass windows that framed the series of revolving doors marking the front entrance of the Willis Tower. Turning to face Thalia, she said, "He won't consider you a danger, right?"

"No, I don't think so," Thalia agreed, having answered that question a few times already that morning.

"Then trust me, this is the way to go," Annabeth replied confidently, twisting to continue scoping out the tower's front lobby. "I'm guessing he'd be all for a chance to have a chat with you, what with his being heirless and all. And I've never met him so he shouldn't know me by my face. It'll give us the perfect opportunity to get the measure of the place—which we _have_ to do if this is gonna work. I know what I'm talking about—this used to be my job, remember." It would probably be safer to have Thalia enter alone, but Annabeth couldn't sit this one out. She'd been successful in convincing Reyna and Leo to lie low while she and Thalia went in for a preemptive meeting with Zeus, but she herself wasn't about to miss it.

"Alright, alright, I trust you," Thalia said, turning up her palms submissively. "It would've been nice if we could do this without having to actually _talk_ to him, but oh, well. I guess it's just not in the cards."

Turning around, Annabeth smiled and placed a hand on Thalia's arm. "You can do this," she said assuredly. "I know you can. You've got nothing to worry about from him."

Thalia sighed in conviction. "Okay. Let's do it."

Annabeth led the way through the nearest revolving glass door and into the front lobby of the Willis Tower. Ignoring the early-afternoon rush of people milling about in the huge, high-ceilinged room, she and Thalia strode across the marble floor and approached the man behind the left end of the information desk.

"Excuse me," Thalia said, tapping her fingers on the desk to get his attention. "We're here to see Abraham Skye."

"Do you have an appointment?" he asked in a friendly voice, a small, habitual smile on his face.

"No," Thalia admitted, unconcerned. "Just call up and tell him Thalia Grace is asking for him. Trust me, he'll want to see me."

"Just a moment, ma'am," the man said with a nod. He turned around and picked up a landline telephone from the shelved desk behind him and dialed a number, spoke into it briefly, and finally turned back to face them. "You're cleared for visitation. Take these guest passes and scan them in the elevator. They'll allow you to reach the business floors. Mr. Skye's office is on the seventy-ninth floor. Someone will meet you at the elevator to show you the way."

"Thank you," Thalia said, mirroring his polite smile as she took the passes and handed one to Annabeth, leading the way toward the row of elevators on their right.

"That was easy," Annabeth muttered to Thalia as they entered an elevator. "He must be pretty desperate to have you back. Get ready for some persuasion."

Thalia groaned, leaning her head back lazily. "Great. Time for a conversation I never really wanted to have again."

As the clerk had said, there was a woman waiting for them when the elevator doors opened on the 79th floor. She was dressed in a neat-looking, dark gray suit and greeted them with the same polite smile. She welcomed them to the executive area of United Airlines and led them down the hall into an open room with a typical office layout of cubicles, many of which were occupied by people leaning over paperwork or scanning computer screens. Others were standing around copiers or chatting with one another. At the back of the room were tall windows that looked out over the city, blocked by waist-high iron bars.

At the end of the central hallway, they turned left into a less populated area with a row of larger offices along the right wall. The woman guided them past the first three doors and knocked firmly on the fourth, which had a shiny, silver plate mounted on the wood which read in neat letters 'Abraham Skye, Chief Executive Officer'. A voice from inside said gruffly, "Yes?" and the woman pushed open the door while Annabeth and Thalia stepped aside.

"Thalia Grace and a guest to see you, sir," the employee said pleasantly.

"Show them in," the gruff voice replied, and the woman backed out of the room, holding out an arm in a gesture for Thalia and Annabeth to enter.

Just over fourteen months ago, Annabeth had come face to face with Parker Grace, Percy's father and one of the three division heads of Olympus—arguably the three most powerful criminals in the United States. He had had a noticeable air of authority and prestige, but a strangely approachable friendliness about him at the same time. His sea-green eyes had twinkled with a soft sort of age, like he'd seen and been through much in his life and it had served to teach him a distinct appreciation for the things around him. She could sense the affluence and regency he possessed, but as their meeting had worn on she'd realized that he didn't frighten her—not like she'd expected him to.

With his elder brother, this was not the case.

Ezekiel Grace was impressive, that much was the same. He was dressed in a pristine double-breasted suit—dark blue with narrow, silver pinstripes, every wrinkle that formed as he shifted looking perfectly neat and deliberate. A thin, metallic badge was pinned to the right lapel of his jacket, embossed with the same name and office born by the plate on the door and the small, rectangular sign set atop the desk at which he sat, straight-backed and stiff. His black hair and beard were marbled with dark shades of gray and trimmed with meticulous care, tucked carefully into place behind his ears and trailing a few inches above his broad shoulders. His strikingly-blue eyes were icy and cold as they fixed steadily on his daughter, pausing on Annabeth as briefly as though she were an unidentifiable stain on the office wall.

The prim perfection reminded Annabeth of her mother, Adelyn, and the commanding aura of Percy's father. But Zeke had none of the friendly, careworn welcome of his brother or his former expansion engineer. His gaze was cool, his stature stone. This man was all business.

This man, more than any she'd met before, was dangerous.

"Thank you, Jane," he said to his employee with an expressionless nod. "Check in with Vance, will you? He should have the updated Miami schedule proposition pulled together by now. Have the meteorology team approve it and make sure it's faxed to MI as soon as possible."

"Yes, sir," the woman replied dutifully, before she vanished from the office and snapped the door closed behind her.

There was a beat of silence as Zeke and Thalia watched each other in passive observation. The air seemed thick and charged, sparked with ozone like a storm cloud was hovering over their heads, though the sky through the windows blanketing the back wall of the office was blue and cloudless.

"Hi, Dad," Thalia spoke first, crossing her arms in what must have been an attempt at casual diffusion. "It's been a long time."

"Eight years, I believe," Zeke agreed, his voice a low, steady hum like a distant roll of thunder. "I admit I was highly surprised when I received the call about your arrival. Who is your colleague?" He didn't sound interested at all, which Annabeth didn't miss for a second. All the better. She wasn't here to make a lasting impression.

"This is Danielle," Thalia reported stoically, choosing a name at random. "She's one of my band's managers. And a good friend."

Annabeth inclined her head politely, creating a mental imprint of the room in her mind via her periphery vision. "Nice to meet you."

"You as well," Zeke replied. He turned back to Thalia as though Annabeth had suddenly left the room. "So. To what do I owe this… pleasant surprise?" There was no venom or resentment in his voice, despite the implied sarcasm. But neither, Annabeth noticed, was there any particular amount of familial affection, either. He spoke to Thalia as though she were a business relation rather than his own flesh and blood.

Thalia shot a vaguely suspicious glance over her shoulder. "This room is secure, I take it?"

One of Zeke's dark eyebrows ticked very slightly upward. "Of course."

Thalia breathed out shortly, a frustrated scowl appearing on her tattooed face. "I know what you did," she said in a low voice.

For an instant Annabeth could swear she saw the ghost of a smirk cross Zeke's face. "You'll have to be more specific," he responded.

Thalia clucked her tongue and shook her head. "I'm not playing this game, Dad. I want to know why. And you'd better have a damn good reason."

Zeke's cold, blue eyes flitted toward Annabeth and she stopped her silent survey of the room, staring back at him carefully.

"She knows, too," Thalia said before her father could ask. "He's her friend, just like I am. I had to tell her who was responsible. And now what we both want is an explanation."

Zeke's eyes, still fixed on Annabeth, narrowed a fraction of an inch in suspicion. But he addressed Thalia when he said, "I'm afraid I can't give you what you're looking for. Years may have passed, but I'm sure you remember the way things go. Certain details are, ah… _contained_, I could say—available only to those directly involved."

Annabeth felt her brow furrow at the evasive answer, but she didn't dare interrupt.

"What are you saying?" Thalia asked sharply.

Her father turned to look at her, tilting his head to the side. There was a bright, piercing intensity in his eyes that seemed to reach for Thalia like a lasso. "I'm saying what I've always said," he replied, a low tone of anticipation creeping into his voice. "It isn't too late for you. Rejoin us—come back to the family you abandoned all those years ago. There's still—"

"_Me?_" Thalia exclaimed with a sudden look of disgust. Annabeth glanced at her sharply, but neither of the room's other occupants seemed to be paying her any attention for the time being. "_I_ abandoned my family? _You're_ the one who didn't answer my calls after I left—who gave me up as lost. Don't you _dare_ lecture me about family. You tried to have your own nephew killed!"

"My _nephew_," Zeke shot back firmly, rising from his chair so he towered over Annabeth and Thalia, "drove my daughter away from me. He allowed the death or alienation of every one of his cousins—_every one _of those who, like him, had claim to the organization."

"You're wrong," Annabeth cut in, glaring at Zeke and drawing his attention. She knew she shouldn't involve herself in the conversation, but she couldn't help it any longer. His words brought back some of her more pained, shameful memories, and those were especially difficult to keep down. "Nico's death _wasn't_ Percy's fault. It was…"

_It was mine_, she'd been about to say. After all, she'd been the one who'd allowed the CIA to intercept the exchange between Olympus and Centaur on that night over a year ago. A fight had broken out—a fight that had resulted in Percy's cousin Nico taking three bullets to the chest, courtesy of her own former mentor, Luke Castellan. Percy had been a wreck after that. Nico had been like a brother to him, Annabeth knew, and what Zeke was accusing him of was so wrong it made her furious.

She shook herself off and turned a dark gaze on Zeke. "It was an accident. And so was what happened to Bianca." Nico's sister, killed years before Annabeth had met them—another result of CIA interference.

"Oh?" Zeke said flatly, eyes darting over Annabeth. "Surprisingly well-informed. Who did you say you were, exactly?"

"It doesn't matter," Thalia interrupted. "You haven't answered my question—why should we bother answering any of yours?"

"Your question?" Zeke repeated, raising his bearded chin and looking down at them through eyes that seemed to spark with electricity. "My supposed involvement, yes, well, I'm afraid you'll have a difficult time proving anything."

"Your assassin used your _name_," Thalia argued venomously.

Zeke lifted a shoulder, looking unconcerned. "Maybe he did. But what good is hearsay, really? According to the news reports, the bombing was the work of a brash terrorist group. No one is looking outside Britain for the cause—oh, but I'm sure the word of two young women will be plenty sufficient to change their minds." A tiny smirk appeared on his face, his voice laced with hidden sarcasm.

Annabeth had begun to worry that this encounter was affecting Thalia too closely and that perhaps they should wrap it up, but at Zeke's words she and her friend exchanged glances of mild confusion.

"Bombing?" Annabeth repeated. "What bombing?"

"I'm talking about the guy _you_ sent to Percy's apartment the other night," Thalia snapped, taking a step toward her father. "Don't act like you have no idea what this is about."

For an instant, Zeke's eyebrows knitted in what looked like genuine surprise. He studied them for a brief few seconds until the edges of his mouth twitched upward in apparent amusement. "You don't know, do you?"

Annabeth didn't like the look on his face, or the haughty tone in his voice. "Know what?" she demanded, a bladed edge to her voice.

Zeke chuckled, lips spreading in a sneer. "Ah, I understand now. You rushed here to confront me while my dear nephew was in the hospital recovering from his… accident. Your aim was, what—to convince me to back off? To leave you all be? It appears you've been so busy you didn't hear that you're already too late."

A pinch of cold touched the top of Annabeth's head and trickled through her like water, making her skin tingle with apprehension. "Too late…?" she repeated, her mouth suddenly dry.

The smug, satisfied look on Zeke's face gave Annabeth a surge of resentment—a feeling that swelled to an enormous capacity when he said with an odd, grim delight, "Too late. Percy Jackson is dead."

"You're lying," Annabeth shot back at once, surprised at how low and rough her voice sounded. She felt her hands tighten into fists as Thalia tensed in kind beside her.

Zeke's eyebrows jerked upward. "You don't believe me? Take a look." He leaned toward his computer and punched a quick succession of keys on the keyboard, clicked the mouse three times, and straightened, twisting the freestanding monitor around so Annabeth and Thalia could see the screen. They walked forward tentatively, Annabeth's mind very aware of the machine pistol tucked safely in the waistband of her jeans, and peered at the display.

Shining on the monitor was an online news article bearing the headline 'Bombing at Royal London Hospital leaves at least 80 dead, 130 injured.' Annabeth felt her lungs turn to lead as her eyes fell on the photograph beside the words, which depicted the hospital she'd visited just a day and half ago looking very different than she remembered it. One of the wing buildings had partially collapsed, crushing the bottom few floors and turning the remainder into a haphazard stack of cracked and battered concrete and glass. Thick, dark smoke was billowing from the lower windows, frozen stiff in its ascent to the dim sky. Police cars and ambulances were parked outside, and people were everywhere.

"You…" Thalia said in an oddly breathy voice. "You did _this?_"

"This doesn't mean he's dead," Annabeth said stonily, tearing her eyes from the article and glaring at Zeke. "He could have escaped. Easily."

"You think I got this far by being careless?" Zeke replied calmly. "Believe me or don't. But seeing as the explosive was planted on him, I can't imagine his chances of escape were too promising."

Thalia breathed in sharply and again Annabeth felt like the air had been swept from her lungs. She wanted so badly for Zeke to be lying, but she could tell just by watching him that he wasn't. He believed what he was saying without a doubt. And with connections and power like his, that meant it was very likely to be true.

"_You_…" Thalia growled, gritting her teeth and glaring daggers at her father. "How… Why…?"

"Why?" Zeke repeated, eyes darkening. He straightened his shoulders and clasped his hands behind his back, looking over his daughter with an air of dissatisfied condescension. "Perhaps you're right, Thalia, the time for games has passed. My _dear_ nephew had become a problem. He was ruthless and conniving—a threat to our regime. It was my responsibility as head of the family to have him eliminated. And that's exactly what I've done."

"_No!_" Annabeth screamed. She slammed her hands on the desk and barely resisted the urge to draw her gun, enticed by the mental image of how the barrel would look shoved between Ezekiel Grace's teeth. "We were _gone!_ We left to show you that he _never_ wanted to threaten you! Why couldn't you have just _left us alone?_"

Zeke glared down at Annabeth, having tensed but not budged an inch during her outburst. "So it's you," he said coldly. "You're the woman from the CIA—the one he handed secrets to and conspired with. You're almost as guilty as he was."

"But nowhere near as guilty as you," Annabeth spat, anger fueling her adrenaline into overdrive. Her fingers were itching to reach for her gun, and the logic holding her back was waning thinner and thinner by the millisecond.

"Annabeth," Thalia said in a barely-controlled voice. "Let's go. I should've known this'd be a waste of time."

"Go?" Zeke repeated, arching an eyebrow. "I don't think so, Thalia. Not this time." He leaned over his desk and pressed a button on the panel of his inter-office phone. "Banks. Code five-six-one-dash-two," he spoke into it, electric blue eyes watching Annabeth and Thalia with icy smugness. "Bring backup. I want my daughter held unharmed. The other woman has plotted against us—show no restraint."

Something in Annabeth snapped. She was normally good at controlling her actions when distressed, but her hatred for this man was too overwhelming. Everything he'd said and done—treating Thalia like a possession, like a robot designed to follow his orders and carry out his will, calling Percy ruthless and conniving, evil, someone who deserved to be cut down, attacking an entire hospital without discretion just to eliminate a single imagined threat—and now he wanted the two of them to give up and let him win _again?_ That wasn't happening. Annabeth wouldn't let it, not after everything she'd been through.

Gathering intel suddenly took a backseat to the main event of the operation and Annabeth reached for her gun with lightning speed, focus zeroed in on the powerful, dangerous man before her. "Annabeth, no!" Thalia yelled as Annabeth took aim with an enraged snarl, her vision a crimson haze. She wasn't the only one who'd been waiting to act, though. As her finger tightened on the trigger, Zeke stooped and lunged forward, shoving his desk across the carpet so the front end slammed into Annabeth. The corner dug into her stomach and she teetered backward, losing her balance and disrupting her aim. The bullet from her handgun flew sideways off target and thudded against one of the huge windows with the dull _chunk_ of a projectile striking bulletproof glass.

"Annabeth!" Thalia called again. She dashed around the misplaced desk and snatched Annabeth by the arm, pulling her back to her feet and dragging her toward the door. Annabeth quickly regained her footing as Zeke started after them with a glare, and she tore her arm from Thalia's grasp and lifted her gun again. But by the time she fired, her target was already too close. He knocked her gun arm aside and she barely had an opening to duck the grab he made for her. She swung her gun at his head but he dodged, driving a fist into her ribs and causing her to gasp and double over. She checked her shoulder into his stomach, but she underestimated his strength and balance—which was stupid, considering how big he was. One of his hands gripped her right shoulder and his other arm slid under her chin, trapping her in a suffocating chokehold.

She staggered and elbowed him in the side, trying to break free, but to no avail. The curtain of anger over her mind billowed with renewed vigor, but her frustration was splitting its aim as part of her cursed herself for her thoughtless actions. What was she doing? She was smarter—better than this. She'd come here today with a rational mind and a singular goal. Where had that gone? How could she let somebody like Zeke trip her up so badly, crush her focus into tiny pieces? Maybe he deserved to win, after all.

Suddenly a suppressed gunshot tore her out of her thoughts as her captor growled harshly and loosened his hold. Mentally smacking herself to attention, she burst free of Zeke's chokehold and gasped, darting out of his reach to see Thalia standing squarely beside the door with her own machine pistol outstretched. Annabeth spun around and saw that Thalia had just shot her father in the thigh in order to free her, and he was staggering backward with his face screwed up in pain and irritation.

"Come on!" Thalia yelled, and this time Annabeth complied. She whirled away from Zeke and followed Thalia at a run out into the hall.

"The elevator may take too long," Annabeth warned, shooting a glance over her shoulder as they sprinted away from Zeke's office and wondering how much time they had until the backup he'd called would arrive.

"You want us to run down seventy-nine flights of stairs?" Thalia challenged a bit frantically. Evidently she was worrying about the same thing.

Annabeth clicked her tongue. "Alright, fine, good point. Let's just hope for a little bit of luck."

They turned the corner into the open office area to see that their silenced gunshots thankfully must have gone unnoticed, as the employees were still going about their usual business. Many of them looked over in interest as Annabeth and Thalia passed the cubicles on the end. Before they could reach the row of elevators, the doors of the one nearest them slid open and five men in black suits stepped out.

"Uh-oh," Thalia muttered as she and Annabeth slowed in apprehension. One of the men spotted them and communicated to his fellows before all five started toward them deliberately. To Annabeth, Thalia whispered, "Now what?"

Tensing and cocking her gun behind her back, Annabeth murmured in reply, "You want them to take you back to your father?"

Thalia scoffed. "Hell no."

Annabeth hid a smirk. "Then there's only one option."

Just then, a voice from behind them growled, "Don't let them get away!" and Annabeth looked to see Zeke limp around the corner and lean against the wall, glaring at them in outrage. His appearance was the catalyst that broke everyone into action. The employees turned or stood, gasps and muttering coming from almost all of them. As she whipped back to face the elevators, she saw glares or determined looks on many faces and wondered how many of them, too, were members of Olympus. Thoughts like that could wait, though, as she had a slightly more pressing problem to deal with—the five suited men by the elevators had all pulled handguns and aimed them at Annabeth and Thalia.

"Move!" Annabeth shouted as she dived to the side, barely aware of Thalia doing the same. Gunshots blared and bullets raced by them. Annabeth dropped to a crouch beside the wall and fired her own gun, piercing one man in the shoulder and chest and knocking him down. She ventilated another in the stomach before weapons were again aimed her way and she was forced to roll to the side to avoid being made into Swiss cheese.

"Do NOT harm my daughter!" Zeke bellowed, his voice muffled—Annabeth assumed he must have ducked around the hall corner to avoid stray gunfire.

As Annabeth darted forward, Thalia leaned out from behind the nearest cubicle—the occupant of which had hastened away from the action—and fired into their attackers, landing a shot in one man's leg and the outstretched gun arm of another. As the second one dropped his weapon, Annabeth, almost upon them, shot him twice in the chest for good measure. She ducked more weapon fire from the two men left standing and jammed her elbow into the elevator button before spinning around and kicking the chest of the one Thalia had shot in the leg. He stumbled back and collided with the last man, knocking them both haphazardly to the ground.

A high-pitched _ding_ sounded the arrival of the second elevator from the left and Annabeth turned to Thalia, yelling, "Let's go!" She leapt over a fallen attacker and made a dash for the elevator, sliding on the carpet in her haste. She threw herself inside, holding the door as Thalia darted around the men as well. The uninjured one managed to shake off his fellow and made a grab for Thalia, hand closing momentarily around her ankle. She stumbled and turned, then kicked him hard in the head to free herself, breaking away as he relinquished his grip with a pained howl. Thalia ducked into the elevator and Annabeth allowed the doors to close, punching the button for the lobby as out in the hall Zeke called after them in rage.

Breathing heavily and leaning against the elevator wall, Thalia said dryly, "Well, _that_ didn't go as planned."

Annabeth shook her head, trying to calm the rushing blood in her body. "I'm sorry. That was stupid. I don't know what came over me."

Thalia's voice softened as she replied, "I do." Looking up, Annabeth saw understanding in her blue eyes—eyes just like her father's and yet so different in every way. "It's okay," she promised with a shrug. "He's got that affect on people. Trust me, I know from experience."

Annabeth gave a small smile, still frustrated with herself but glad that Thalia seemed not to hold her actions against her. They would have some serious reevaluation to do after they got out of there, but there wasn't much time to think about it right then. In what felt like no time at all, the elevator arrived at the lobby and the doors slid open.

"He'll call more guys," Thalia said confidently as they both hid their guns and tried to appear casual as they started toward the front exit. "If he hasn't already. I don't know what code-whatever-he-said means—for all we know he may have requested an army."

"Then let's hurry up and get the hell out of here," Annabeth muttered. They pushed their way through one of the revolving doors and out onto the sidewalk. They'd barely gone a few steps, however, when Thalia breathed in sharply and grabbed Annabeth's wrist, freezing to an abrupt stop. Annabeth followed her gaze to the two black, unmarked cars that had just pulled to a stop a few yards ahead of them. Men in dark, unassuming clothing stepped out, and Annabeth whispered, "You don't think—?"

"I've seen that guy—the one on the right," Thalia said. "He worked for my dad years ago. Safe bet he still does."

"Let's just act cool. Maybe they won't know it's us."

Thalia shook her head. "They'll know me. We need to—" She broke off as one of the men pointed obviously at the two of them and said something to the others. Thalia cursed under her breath. "Never mind. Run!" She turned around and bolted off in the other direction, and Annabeth had a brief glimpse of the men reacting in surprise and shoving each other back into their cars before she turned tail and followed her friend. They'd had Reyna and Leo park the car in a lot half a block away and wait there for word. If they could just get there without getting caught they'd stand a much better chance of escaping.

Annabeth was more than a little out of breath by the time she and Thalia turned down a side street and the open lot came into view. They both vaulted over the low guard rail and sprinted around a row of cars. Halfway down the second row from the right, Annabeth saw Reyna and Leo standing casually by their car, talking aimlessly and waiting for their companions to return. Reyna caught a glimpse of them first and nudged her boyfriend on the arm, and he turned to face them and stood up straight in alarm. Annabeth and Thalia were just close enough to see the frowns appear on their faces.

"What's up?" Leo asked as they neared.

"Get in the car," Thalia said urgently.

Reyna looked between them and started to say, "What did you guys—?"

Annabeth interrupted her, "They're after us! We have to go _now!_"

That did it. Leo and Reyna exchanged a brief glance before they opened both driver's side doors beside which they were standing and dropped into their seats. Annabeth rushed around and threw herself into the front passenger seat as Thalia took the back, slamming their doors shut in perfect unison as the engine revved to life.

"What happened?" Reyna demanded as Leo backed the car out of the parking space and they rolled toward the lot's entrance.

"We'll explain later," Annabeth replied quickly, twisting around to look out the back window as they pulled out onto the street. "Let's just get far away from here before Zeus's goons catch up with us."

"Too late!" Thalia said suddenly. She pointed out the back window as a black sedan sped around the corner, another at its back. Facing forward, Thalia yelled, "Drive!" and with a scowl Leo pounded the gas pedal, urging them swiftly forward. Annabeth's back slammed against her seat and in the right side mirror she saw the black cars give chase immediately. She slid sideways into her door as they made a sharp left turn onto a side street lined with parked cars. Pedestrians glanced their way with alarm as they sped past. The lack of other motor traffic on the road didn't help much to hide them, and in no time their pursuit was behind them once again. Annabeth heard muffled gunfire and ducked instinctively, turning around to see a man leaning out the passenger window of the closer car and aiming a firearm in their direction, causing the people on the sidewalks to scream and scramble about.

"Not good!" Thalia shouted, ducking the gunfire as well.

"We need some camouflage," Leo said, serious eyes darting back and forth between the rear-view mirror and the road. "Hang tight, guys, this could get messy."

He made another sharp left down the next road they came to and took it straight to the end, where it reconnected them with the main street of downtown Chicago. A speedy right turn threw them into tighter traffic with a _screech_, drawing a few blaring car horns in their direction as one vehicle slammed its brakes and was subsequently rear-ended by an SUV. Barely slowing down, Leo yanked the wheel to the left to dodge around the sedan in front of them just as the two black cars chasing them sped onto the road in front of the wreck that was now stopping outbound traffic.

Annabeth gripped the handle on her door and held her breath as a taxi veered sideways out of their way, nearly colliding with a two-door sports car. More gunshots fired, and with a frustrated growl Leo pulled them sideways into oncoming traffic. Annabeth forced herself not to close her eyes in panic as a pickup truck slowed with a high-pitched whine and darted evasively into the other inbound lane. Barely a second later Leo guided them back to the right, having placed another car between them and their pursuit.

At the stoplight up ahead, the road split into four outbound lanes, two curving to the right and two going straight. Leo sped up and cut in front of a red SUV, the driver of which pounded their brakes and laid on their horn. Annabeth winced at the sound of metal crunching against metal as another car must have collided with the SUV from behind. A few other cars around them caught on and slowed or darted hastily aside in attempted avoidance of the chase. Their light was red, but Leo didn't even try to stop. He followed the road to the right at an alarming speed to more car horns as many of the motorists in cross-traffic were forced to take evasive action. Annabeth just had time to notice that they were heading for a bridge over the river when her ears registered the police sirens.

"Great," Reyna muttered as all three women turned to see flashing red and blue lights rounding the bend. One of the black cars was two vehicles behind them, rolling back and forth between the shoulder and the road as the man leaning out the passenger window tried to get a clear shot. The other had slid on a patch of damp, winter slush into the left outbound lane and rammed sideways into another car, pushing them both into oncoming traffic that swerved to avoid a pileup. Behind that, two police squad cars were visible and picking up the pursuit of all three offending vehicles.

"Can't you use that super-speed thing again?" Thalia asked, sliding forward on her seat and latching onto the back of Annabeth's.

"Road's too crowded," Leo responded as he weaved between openings in the traffic. "We'd hit another car for sure. Which is _not_ something you wanna do at that speed."

"I think the cop cars may help with that," Reyna pointed out, and she was on the mark. The flashing lights must have gotten the attention of a lot of other drivers, as all around and ahead of them cars were changing lanes and pulling over to the side of the road. Although, they were only a hundred yards or so from the bridge, which offered very little room to maneuver.

Suddenly there was a sharp smashing sound and Thalia yelled in pain at the same time Leo swore loudly and the car jerked slightly to the left. Annabeth twisted in her seat and saw jagged cracks snaking across the back window, a portion of which had shattered and littered glass behind the backseat. Reyna had ducked to the side and Thalia was doubled over, one hand clenching her seat and another gripped tightly over her left shoulder.

Immediately grasping the situation, Annabeth yanked out her gun in anger and aimed it out the back window, firing rapidly at the black car behind them as the man leaning out the passenger window dropped back into his seat. Thalia started to straighten, but Annabeth's eyes shot to the blood on her shoulder and she ordered her, "Stay down." She emptied her magazine, a few of the bullets striking the car in the hood or windshield and causing it to swerve dangerously. It almost collided with a taxi cab to its left, which hit its brakes hard and rotated sideways, causing its tail to clip one of the cop cars pursuing them and spin it out.

They were on the bridge now, hundreds of feet over the river and speeding past cars that were hurrying to clear the way. As the black car straightened and sped after them, Annabeth clicked her tongue and dropped back into her seat, opening the glove compartment for a replacement magazine. She looked over her shoulder and cursed through her teeth. "I can't get a clear shot like this. I feel like we're sitting ducks."

"You want a clear shot?" Leo said, eyes on the rearview mirror. He shot Annabeth a grim smirk and warned, "Hold on." He flattened the brake pedal and yanked on the steering wheel, causing the tires to screech against the road as the car spun hard to the side. Annabeth's shoulder slammed against her door and she grabbed the dashboard with both hands as Leo pushed forward on the gear shift, throwing the car into reverse and twisting the wheel back to the right. He stepped on the gas again and turned around in his seat, one hand on the side of Annabeth's backrest and eyes trained out the back window.

Annabeth didn't have time to be alarmed that they were now facing their pursuers, driving in reverse. She shook herself off and snapped her replacement magazine into place, lowering her window and leaning through it for better aim. Rather than try and break through the windshield of the black car following them, she zeroed in on its front tires in an effort to shake them off. Leo continued to dodge traffic in reverse, and Annabeth forced herself not to think about how dangerous this whole situation had suddenly become as she tried to work with their changing position and get rid of their tail.

Her first few shots missed, clipping the hood of the car or the pavement beneath it. The car swerved to the left in evasion, but there was hardly room between the road and the metal suspension of the bridge. Biting her tongue for focus, Annabeth steadied her arm and landed two bullets in the front driver's side tire of the car, causing it to pull to the right and throw itself in the way of the already-frantic inbound traffic. Another sedan hit its brakes with a screech and tried to turn in avoidance, but both cars hit each other sideways, drawing a third into the mess and causing others around them to jerk sharply or stop. The other police car in the immediate vicinity was locked behind the collision. Annabeth could see more red and blue lights flashing in the distance, but for now their way appeared to be clear.

"Okay, let's go!" she shouted, ducking back into her seat as again Leo slowed and shifted gears, whipping them around to face front and very nearly colliding with the back of a semi truck. They sped around and in front of it for cover and slowed, following the flow of traffic off the bridge and taking the next right turn down a city street. Annabeth sat still and focused on regaining control of her breathing as they drove, and before she knew it Leo had pulled them into a parking garage and they'd stopped neatly on the second level.

For a long minute none of them moved. Annabeth was having a bit of a difficult time believing what had just happened. Part of her was feeling guilty that there was a good chance they'd just gotten innocent people hurt, but a bigger part was simply glad Olympus or the police hadn't caught them—which, admittedly, sort of made the guilty part a little worse.

One thing was for sure, though—they had to keep moving. They didn't have time to sit and relax anymore. Annabeth took a deep breath and forced her brain activity to slow. She needed to proceed calmly and rationally—she'd already messed up once by acting brashly with Zeke. She wasn't about to do it again.

Feeling the adrenaline in her body fade, she turned to Leo and said in a voice gravelly with released tension, "You're one hell of a driver." He looked at her and gave a weak, derisive sort of laugh.

"So now what?" Reyna spoke up. "We may have lost them but we've still got our share of problems." Annabeth and Leo twisted around to see that she'd slid closer to Thalia and had an arm around her back, dark eyes trained on the bullet wound in her friend's shoulder. Beads of sweat slid over the scowl on Thalia's face, her teeth gritted and her breathing heavy. Blood had crept down the sleeve of her jacket, and she still had a hand tightened over the worst of it.

"We need a doctor," Annabeth decided. "There's no way around that. We're gonna have to get Thalia to a hospital."

"That'll be dangerous," Thalia said warningly, her voice airy. "It's not worth the risk—"

"Yes it is," Annabeth cut her off adamantly. "If that's not treated the right way it could get a lot worse. And I'm not having you die on me or lose an arm or something. We're all coming out of this."

"I think we should split up," Reyna suggested in a steady voice. "I'll take Thalia to the hospital; it'll be less of a risk that way."

"Why you?" Leo asked with a skeptical frown.

"No offense," Reyna said wryly, "but you're both criminals. _You've_ got a record and _you've_ got the entire CIA after you. I've got the best chance of getting help without arousing suspicion. We'll say we were caught in the car chase downtown, I'm sure they'll know all about it—how guns were being fired and everything."

"Alright," Annabeth agreed somewhat reluctantly. She didn't want to be separated, but she could see the obvious sense in the plan. "We're gonna need a place to hide—to regroup and figure out what to do from here."

Reyna opened her mouth and hesitated, her eyes traveling from Annabeth to Leo and narrowing just a bit in thought. "I know a place," she said carefully. "My sister lives in Hammond, maybe half an hour from here. If I call her and explain the situation, I think she'd help you stay under the radar."

Leo cringed. "Please don't tell me that's our only option."

Reyna gave him a pointed look. "It's our _best_ option," she said with a bit more confidence. "She may not trust you, Leo, but she knows I do. She'll help."

Annabeth kept quiet. She didn't want to involve even more people than she already had, but a relative had to be better than a random stranger. And besides, what chance did they have of avoiding detection in the city by themselves? Having a place to hide out would be a huge help.

After Reyna had jotted her sister's address on an envelope from the glove compartment, Leo changed the plates on the car again before covering it with a canvas tarp from the trunk. If they did intend to go after Zeus again (which, though they didn't discuss it yet, Annabeth fully did; she had no desire to leave it after that last meeting), they'd come back and retrieve their supplies. For the time being, however, they would be less conspicuous on foot and in taxi cabs.

As Annabeth and Leo left Thalia and Reyna, Annabeth felt a cold wash of loss that she realized had nothing to do with the two of them. It hadn't had time to sink in earlier through the life-threatening danger she'd just fought her way out of, but now her conversation with Zeke was flooding like a river back into her head, and the calm she'd barely attained was crumbling.

Zeke had told her that Percy was dead—that he'd staged a second attack and it had succeeded where the first had failed. But was he telling the truth? Despite what he'd shown them, Annabeth couldn't—_wouldn't _be sure. Not yet. She needed proof—nothing less was going to make her believe that her fiancé was gone. A tiny voice in the back of her mind tried to convince her otherwise—Zeke had been so sure, so… _happy_. The only explanation was that he _had_ to be right. But she shoved that thought down, adamantly denying the pricks of the tears it tried to draw from her eyes. His word wasn't enough.

She _would_ find out the truth. And if it was like he said—if the man she loved really was dead at his uncle's hands—then she would make Zeke pay. One way or another, he would feel her pain. He wouldn't get away from her—or anyone—ever again.

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**This is probably gonna be the longest chapter, judging by my outline. Hopefully, anyway. Long chapters worry me because I feel like it's more likely I've made mistakes somewhere or written too repetitively. Ugh the pains of writing... haha.**

**So how 'bout a review? I'm gonna get started on the next chapter ASAP, promise. I really hate being behind on my stories. Life would be great if I could just make some solid headway... *sigh***

**Later days!**

**-oMM**


	10. Rumors

**Hey guys! Short chapter today. I would've had it done sooner, but I've been sick the past few days so I haven't worked on it since mid-last week. Probably would've been a disaster if I'd tried to write while bone-tired, haha.**

**Thanks for the reviews! Enjoy!**

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This ain't about all the _friends_ you made / But the **graffiti** they write _on your grave_

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Percy could think of a lot of places that were suitable for an important strategy meeting. A friend's apartment, maybe. Or his dad's building. The upper room of the bar he used to work at. A secluded section of the park that didn't see much foot traffic.

Not on that list, however, was the food court of Queens Central Mall at five o'clock on a Thursday evening.

"There's got to be a better rendezvous point than _this_," he muttered irritably as he quickly sidestepped to avoid a pair of chattering girls pushing carelessly past him. "This place is packed."

Beside him, Silena only shrugged. "Trust me, we're much less likely to be overheard in a crowded area. Besides, this was a good central location for everybody. I told you, Charlie said they don't have a lot of time. You wanted to move quickly, too, right?"

Percy grumbled an affirmative reply as Piper stood up on tiptoe, craning her neck to see above the heads of the bustling crowd.

"I'll go grab some grub," she volunteered. "You guys find a table. Kick some stragglers out, if you have to." She shot them both a salute before shoving between two groups of shoppers and disappearing into the throng.

Surprisingly, Silena and Percy didn't end up having to kick anyone out (not that he would've minded doing so). They were able to snag a round, six-seat table in the left wing of the food court just as a group of teenagers was getting up to leave. They quickly sat down and spread their coats out over the remaining chairs to divert any attempts to steal them.

"So what time are they getting here?" Percy asked, leaning across the table toward Silena and raising his voice so she'd hear him.

Silena checked her phone. "By quarter after," she responded, unlocking the screen and tapping it rapidly with her thumbs. "I'll let Charlie know we're waiting."

Percy nodded and sat back in his chair, folding his arms and turning to lazily scan the crowd. He wasn't sure what to expect from this meeting Silena had set up between them, Beckendorf, and Frank Zhang. Percy knew Beckendorf well enough, but Tony La Rue's illegitimate son was another story entirely. He knew Frank was his age and had been involved in the gang life almost as long as he had. But beyond that, he was going into this blindly. If what Silena said about Frank's distrust in Zeke was true, then he probably didn't have anything to worry about. But still, a nagging voice in the far reaches of his mind kept insisting that the more people knew he was alive and going after his uncle, the more dangerous his movements would become. If this escalated to a full-scale revolution—a civil war within the organization—there was a better-than-average chance things could get messy. Very messy. And with so much at stake, he was determined not to let that happen.

But all of it was riding on this meeting.

After a few minutes, Piper materialized through the mob and dropped onto their table a food tray stacked with baskets of chicken strips and cheese fries, boxes of Chinese food, and five bottles of spring water. She plopped into a chair beside her sister and looked up as Percy shot her a skeptical look.

"What?" she said. "Rich dad, remember? Dig in." She pulled a box of vegetable lo mein toward her and promptly set to work on it, obviously deciding that no further talking was necessary.

"Thanks, Piper," Silena said with a simple smile as she reached for the tray and claimed a water and a box of sesame shrimp. With a shrug, Percy took a chicken basket and they lapsed into silence.

It was another six or seven minutes before Silena's cell phone screen suddenly lit up on the table beside her. She set down her water bottle and picked it up, touching the screen before pressing it to her ear. "Charlie?" she said loudly into it. "You're here? Yeah, I know, I can barely hear you." She stood up and peered over the crowd. "We're by the Chipotle, just head that way. We've got food for you guys. Oh—hey, I see you!" She waved an arm in an arc over her head, stepping up on her toes as her eyes locked onto something in the distance. "You do? Right, see you in a sec." As she lowered her phone, Percy twisted sideways in his seat and searched the edges of his vision until Charles Beckendorf pushed his way into view. Six feet tall and built like a wrestler, he didn't seem to have much difficulty maneuvering the crowd.

As he approached their table and Silena moved to greet him with a kiss and a tight hug, Percy's eyes narrowed when they landed on the person following him—a tall, burly woman with scraggly brown hair and a permanent scowl. People seemed to be giving her a wide berth, dodging around her and shooting her nervous glances as they passed. It was clear she aimed to intimidate, dressed in worn leathers and heavy boots, a bandanna around her neck and studded, fingerless gloves on her oversized hands.

"What are you doing here?" Percy asked in a slightly less-than-friendly tone.

"That coming from our very own Lazarus," Clarisse La Rue replied, lifting an eyebrow but seeming otherwise unconcerned. "I wanted to see if the rumor was true—if you really were back from the dead."

"Rumor?" Percy repeated sharply. "What rumor?"

"She just means what Silena told us," another voice said evenly as a third person came to stand by their table. This guy was taller than both Clarisse and Beckendorf, and was the size of an offensive lineman. He had Tony La Rue's broad shoulders and short-cropped black hair, but the similarities stopped there. His skin was lighter and his brown eyes were narrow and slanted, his face more round. His gaze was alert but not unkind, and though he didn't smile he also didn't look angry or unapproachable. He was dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a dark gray pullover hoodie, blending in with their surroundings a lot better than his half-sister.

"Frank Zhang," he introduced himself, pulling out the empty chair beside Percy and dropping into it. He held out a hand, which Percy shook. "You must be Percy Jackson. I've heard a lot about you."

Percy gave a wry grin and ran a hand through his hair. "Good stuff, I hope."

Frank lifted a shoulder, the corner of his mouth twitching upward. "If you count being dead as good."

"Which brings us to the real story here," Beckendorf said as he sat down between Percy and Silena, prompting Clarisse to claim the last seat between Piper and Frank. Beckendorf plucked a cheese-coated fry from his girlfriend's tray and took a bite of it before pointing the rest at Percy and saying, "You. Spill it."

So for what felt like the millionth time, Percy explained the events of the past few days. Apparently, all Silena had told Beckendorf over the phone was that Percy was back and that he wanted to talk about Zeke, so he had a lot of gaps to fill in. He did his best to hide his reservations as he spoke, telling himself that he needed to appear confident if he was going to convince any of them to help him.

When he finished, Clarisse pounded a fist on the table, knocking over Piper's bottle of water (which thankfully had the cap screwed on) and causing it to roll off the table and onto the floor. Percy expected her to make some jibe about going out of her way for him and his fiancée, but all she said was, "That was low, what Zeke did. Dirt-low. You don't see all of us just goin' around pickin' off people we think are in the way." She waved a gloved hand. "'Honor among thieves', and all that."

"Well said," Beckendorf grunted in agreement. "Olympus is a family. We look out for each other. We don't send assassins and bombers after other members—let alone your own blood. He had no right to go after you, not when you'd done nothing to him." His eyes rose to the ceiling. "Another misguided act."

Frank wrinkled his nose. "Add it to the list."

"Silena told me you guys have had issues before," Percy remembered, interested. "What else has he done since I left?"

"Tough question to answer," Clarisse said wryly. "He's been lax with personal involvement lately—hardly anybody sees him unless they work at the Tower. He's had a bunch of his people on some covert assignment—zero details to us _lay folk_."

"Looking for me, you think?" Percy suggested dryly with a rueful shake of his head.

"Probably," Beckendorf agreed. "But that's not all that's going on. He's had my dad working around the clock, cranking out equipment—mostly light weapons, but the occasional heavy artillery keeps slipping in. He must be stocking up for something, but I got no clue what."

"Either he's expecting an attack," Frank spoke up, "or he's planning one."

"Whichever it is," Silena said, dark eyebrows knitting together, "it's strange. He hasn't brought Parker or Harley in on any of it. We haven't talked to Harley—you know how busy he always is—and your dad won't say much, but we can tell he's got doubts."

"We can't drag him into this, though," Percy said adamantly. "I'm not starting a war between the division heads. I don't want this any bigger than it needs to be."

"You're talking about going after _Zeke_," Beckendorf pointed out with a frown. "The leader of the organization. It's plenty big already."

Percy cringed. "I know. I already feel bad about getting you guys involved. But… now that you are…" He let his voice trail off and looked at each of them, asking the unspoken question he knew they all would understand.

Clarisse, Frank, and Beckendorf exchanged unreadable glances. "We… need some time to think about it," Beckendorf decided after a minute.

Percy wrung his hands, fighting back apprehension. "I get that. But I haven't exactly _got_ time. Annabeth and Thalia have got to be in Chicago by now. Hopefully they're biding their time, but I'm not trying to take any chances."

"A few hours, that's it," Beckendorf bargained. "We've got a job tonight, the three of us. Straight from Zeke. If we ditch, he'll know something's up."

"A job?" Percy repeated with a frown. "What kind of job?"

"Deal crash," Clarisse supplied. She scowled over her shoulder as a teenage boy accidentally bumped her from behind, and he quickly scampered away. "There's an exchange in Central Park tonight at midnight, between Cyclops and Medusa. Boss wants us to intercept it."

"Just the three of you? You're kidding, right?"

"Zeke's sending us a back-up squad," Beckendorf explained. "It'll be dangerous, I know, but we can't just say no. Messed up or not, he's still the boss."

"Let me go with you," Percy decided suddenly, barely considering before speaking.

Silena and Beckendorf exchanged skeptical looks. "But," Silena said slowly, "if anybody else finds out you're still alive—"

"They won't," Percy said. "I can keep hidden. Come on, you guys could use some extra cover, right?"

Clarisse grunted. "Can't argue with that."

"Exactly," Percy said, pointing a finger at Clarisse. "Then after it's over, we can… discuss this again."

Silena huffed and shot Percy a glare. "In that case, Piper and I are coming, too. We'll keep an eye on you." Percy opened his mouth to protest, but Silena quickly shot him down. "Frankly, I don't trust you on your own. You'll do something stupid and somebody will see you. You are _not_ getting yourself discovered and ruining this whole thing before it starts."

"Alright, alright," Beckendorf interrupted, flattening his hands on the table in a placating gesture. "You're all in. Happy?"

Piper grinned as she tossed her water bottle in the air and caught it again. "Sweet. Hanging out at home was getting boring." Silena gave a small smile and rolled her eyes.

"All that time on vacation overseas—you better not have gotten rusty, Jackson," Clarisse said with a light smirk.

Percy smiled grimly as he thought back on the hospital incident the previous day. It was true, his time in London was something of a vacation, considering how much it differed from the life he'd been used to back home. But still, when danger had come unexpectedly, it was a little surprising how easily he'd slipped back into his role as the heir to the largest criminal organization in the United States. It was almost like he'd never been gone at all.

With a nonchalant shrug, he glanced across the table at Clarisse and replied, "Guess we'll find out tonight."

* * *

**So yeah, no meet-up between our heroes just yet. It'll happen eventually, just give me time ;)**

**On a different note, you guys read Blood of Olympus? I liked it a lot, personally - thought it was way better than House of Hades :D**

**See ya when I see ya! Later days!**

**-oMM**


	11. Ice

**Hey gang! Some good news for you, I'm finally making a bit more comfortable headway with this story. I have through chapter 13 finished and am partway through 14, so (knock on wood) I should be able to get back to once-a-week posting. I'm weaning my way back to Thursday, as you can see, since I like that as an update day.**

**So, thanks to those of you who stuck with me while I worked through my slow patch. Chances are looking good that I'll be able to stay regular with this for a while, hopefully through to the end. We're more than halfway done now, which is awesome :D**

**Thanks for the reviews! This chapter's not too exciting, but I did enjoy writing it so hopefully you enjoy reading it! :D**

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For all of us who've seen the** light** / _Salute_ the dead and _lead_ the fight

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Twilight was tugging at the sky by the time the cab pulled into the private drive on Grant Avenue in the suburbs of Hammond, Indiana. Annabeth inhaled as she peered out the back window, an eyebrow arching of its own accord. She felt a momentary spark of apprehensive doubt—was this really the address Reyna had given them? The cab driver didn't seem concerned, so she didn't ask. He drove around the circular strip of pavement in front of the house and stopped, and Annabeth and Leo paid him, thanked him, and sent him on his way.

As he drove off, Annabeth paused to look up at the home that supposedly belonged to Reyna's sister. It was big for a house but not gigantic, with smoky stone walls and black tiered roofing. It was an attractive dwelling for sure, but what really stood out were the grounds. A line of perfectly-shaped, snow-dusted pine trees separated the house from the road, with a break for the driveway to snake through them. The yard had to be at least five or six acres of gently-sloping grass, covered by a few-inch layer of white snow. The precipitation had been neatly plowed from the pavement and the alabaster stone walkway that led up to the black oak front doors and was framed by neat, tiny berry bushes. Glancing around, she wondered in slight awe what a place like this must have cost. A few intimidating numbers came to mind.

"What does she do?" Annabeth meant the question to come out as conversational, but the surprise in her voice was palpable.

"She works for Amazon," Leo answered, also eyeing the house with a touch of nervousness. "She's on the board of directors."

"Huh," Annabeth replied, impressed. She started down the stone walkway until she reached the front doors, eyeing the pointed icicles jutting down from the awning above them, but paused with a frown when she realized she was standing there alone. She turned around and gestured to Leo, who was still waiting back by the driveway. "Aren't you coming?" she asked.

He blinked, looking at her as though just realizing she was there. "What? Oh, uh… Yeah. Sorry."

Annabeth set a hand on her hip, remembering his apparent reluctance when Reyna had first mentioned her sister back in Chicago. "Are you okay?" she asked suspiciously as he came to a less-than-resolute halt beside her.

"Of course. For now, anyway." Before Annabeth could ask what he meant, Leo added dully, "Just ring the bell."

She did, hearing a muffled chime from inside the house as a result. Only a few seconds passed before the left door was pulled inward to reveal the house's owner—a tall, slim woman who could only be Reyna's sister. She was noticeably older—perhaps in her early thirties—but had the same cappuccino complexion, long onyx hair, and dark chocolate eyes. Her face had a stern seriousness implying that this was not someone who was safe to cross. She immediately folded her arms across her chest as though falling into a default stance, a finger tapping steadily on her elbow.

"You," she said in a low, chilly voice, narrow eyes fixing on Leo without the vaguest glance at Annabeth.

Leo grinned and waved, standing his ground despite the obvious nervousness in his expression. "Hey, Hylla. Long time no—" He broke off when the woman stepped abruptly forward, drew back an arm, and without warning slugged him hard across the jaw.

"Hey!" Annabeth stammered in surprise, jerking reflexively toward them both as Leo staggered backward off the front step.

The woman ignored her. "Don't get all friendly with me," she snapped at Leo. "What have you dragged my sister into now? She calls me up out of the blue and says you need a place to hide? That she isn't coming—that she's got _something else _to do?" She advanced on Leo as he straightened and poked him forcefully in the chest. "If she's in trouble because of _you_, Valdez, I swear to God—"

"This isn't his fault, it's mine!" Annabeth said hurriedly, this time pushing her way between Leo and Reyna's sister. "_I _dragged them _both_ into this. And for the time being, Reyna's safe, I promise."

The woman—Hylla, Leo had called her—leaned backward and pursed her lips as she looked Annabeth over. "Who are you?"

Annabeth took a deep breath, meeting Hylla's gaze unflinchingly. "My name's Annabeth. Reyna and I have a mutual friend. Look, we'll explain everything, okay? But I'd rather do it inside, if that's alright. It's sort of cold out here."

Hylla exhaled shortly, her breath a puff of smoke in the air. Her left eye twitched as she glanced piercingly over Annabeth's shoulder at her sister's boyfriend. "Fine," she decided. "Follow me." She spun quickly on her heel and marched back into the house, leaving the door open behind her.

As Annabeth released her breath, Leo dropped a hand on her shoulder and shook his head. "Thanks," he said with a weak smile. "Not to say I wasn't expecting that. In case you couldn't tell, she and I aren't exactly best buds. I don't think she likes the fact that I have a criminal record."

"Gee, you think?" Annabeth responded dryly. "Might've been nice to know that ahead of time." Leo laughed sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck, rotating his jaw with a cringe. Annabeth's eyes shot to the bruise forming below his ear and realized that Hylla, much like her sister, could really pack a punch. Must run in the family. "Come on," she said with a wry smile, as she grabbed Leo's jacket sleeve and led the way into the house.

Unsurprisingly, the inside of Hylla's home was every bit as impressive as the outside. Annabeth didn't allow herself much time to mull it over, though—they were in the middle of an important operation, and securing Hylla's trust was at the top of their to-do list.

They followed her into a sitting room off the foyer and immediately launched into their tale (or, most of it; they left out some of the more crucial details, only telling Hylla what was necessary). Annabeth did most of the talking, given that every time Leo opened his mouth Hylla would grind her teeth and tighten her grip on the pillow in her lap. When she wasn't doing those things, though, she listened quietly and attentively, her grim expression never changing. She sat on one end of the loveseat, leaning sideways against the armrest with her legs crossed at the knee. She was dressed casually in dark green jeans and a black V-neck T-shirt, her long hair tied back in a ponytail. If Annabeth hadn't just watched her attack a guy bigger and taller than her without provocation, she wouldn't have taken her for the violent type at all. Glowering expression aside, she seemed very normal.

When they finished, Hylla let out a long sigh, a hand toying absently with the end of her long ponytail. "Well," she said heavily, "if you need a place to stay, you've got one. Reyna knows I'm always there for her and her… friends." She shot Leo a look of clear disapproval at that last word, and he winced as though she'd hit him again. He offered her a weak but grateful smile—one she didn't return. "Just remember—if _anything_ happens to her, I'll hold you personally responsible. Both of you," she added with a stern, though not reproachful, glance at Annabeth.

"I'll make sure she's okay," Annabeth promised, meaning every word. She felt bad enough for getting Leo and Reyna caught up in her and Thalia's crusade. She would do everything in her power to make sure neither of them ended up paying for it. "And thank you. We don't need to stay long—just until this whole thing blows over a bit and we can come up with a plan."

"Right." Hylla stood, straightening her clothes and tossing her ponytail over her shoulder. "Well, I've got work to do in the study. Help yourselves to anything in the kitchen, just don't make a mess."

When she disappeared from the room, Leo breathed out dramatically and leaned backward on his armchair. He pulled a familiar black Zippo lighter from his pocket and started reflexively flicking it on and off, and Annabeth had a brief, disconcerting vision of what Hylla would do if she saw him playing with fire in her house. "We'd better pull this off," he said, "or she'll make sure Reyna and I never come within ten miles of each other again."

"I'm sorry," Annabeth said with a grimace.

Leo waved an arm lazily. "How many times do we have to tell you it's cool? You know my history with Zeus. I want this just as much as you do."

Annabeth smiled, but her expression twitched into a frown as her own reasons flooded back to the forefront of her mind. Flashing back to her conversation with Zeke, she stood abruptly and turned around, striding into the hall. She heard Leo call something and get up to follow her, but she wasn't paying much attention. She crossed the foyer and looked into the first doorway she found, revealing what looked like a coat room—no good. The next open doorway led down two carpeted steps into a den with big, cushy furniture and a flat-screen television set. She stepped inside and dropped onto the middle of the sofa, picking up the remote and pointing it at the screen. A single button press brought it to life.

Almost robotically, Annabeth started flicking through the channels, pausing anytime she saw something that looked like the news. Most news stations were recounting local stories, including routine weather and traffic reports. Finally, though, she found what she was looking for—a specialized station reporting on recent global affairs.

And immediately her heart sank into her stomach. The top story was the exact one Zeke had shown her—a terrorist bombing of the Royal London Hospital. It was _real_. The article he'd produced on his computer hadn't exactly looked falsified, but still Annabeth had refused to believe it without substantial proof. But now, here that proof was, staring her in the face in the form of an on-site reporter interviewing a paramedic outside the partially-collapsed wing of the hospital. The headline at the bottom of the screen read 'BOMBING AT LONDON HOSPITAL – DEATH COUNT NOW AT 93.'

So Zeke hadn't been lying after all—not about that. Which likely meant that he hadn't been lying about any of it, especially considering the fact that he'd seemed very much to believe what he was telling them wholeheartedly. He'd said that Percy couldn't have escaped—that the explosive was planted on him. Did that make that true as well? Annabeth didn't want to think so, but suddenly she was having a very difficult time convincing herself otherwise.

"That's it, isn't it?" Leo said grimly from behind her. She felt him lean his arms on the back of the couch on which she was seated. "The hospital your fiancé was at, the one you said Zeus attacked."

Annabeth's mouth felt as dry as sand. "Yeah."

"Well… Okay, just because that actually happened doesn't mean… I mean, there's still a chance…"

She could tell he was grasping at straws in an attempt to reassure her, and she felt a weak swell of gratitude for the attempt. But the time for false hope was over.

"He's dead," she said, her voice surprisingly low and leaden. The words felt alien on her tongue—like she was speaking another language without realizing it.

"Annabeth…"

The language senses of her brain must have been on the wrong setting, because even her name sounded off. She tuned her surroundings out for a second to allow the truth to sink through the membrane of denial in her mind—it was just as Zeke had said: Percy really was dead. After everything she'd done a year ago—her assignment to take him out, her mistake of letting her guard down, her decision to leave the CIA to be with him, to flee her old employers and his dangerous family—despite it all she hadn't been able to hold onto what she'd fought so hard to earn: a free life with him. What she wanted most was gone, leaving an empty pit in the middle of her heart like Zeke had dug into her with a frozen scalpel and the ice from his cold, evil eyes had rooted there, drawing from her body all the warmth Percy's love had ever given her.

The images of the news report blurred across her vision, becoming a dim wash of indiscernible colors. Unnerved, she blinked hard a few times, realizing that her eyes were damp. She forced the tears back, not ready to let them fall. She wouldn't give Zeke the satisfaction of breaking her—not until she broke him first. Her journey wasn't over—not by a long shot. The sooner she accepted that, the stronger her resolve would rebuild itself to be.

"It's okay." Her voice was starting to sound like her again—calmer and less raspy. "I mean—it's not _okay_, but…" Her throat tightened like she was trying to breath gelatin instead of air and she gave up on talking for a beat. Leo stepped around the sofa and sat down on the left cushion, angled slightly toward her with his hands on his knees. His expression was uncertain, like he wanted to say something but didn't know how or what. And why should he? He was a friend of a friend of a friend. The two of them barely knew each other. Annabeth couldn't—shouldn't expect him to talk her down, comfort her. After all, he'd never even met Percy. And he'd only met her a day ago.

For an instant, she wished Thalia were there—and then she felt another painful pang when she realized that sooner or later she would have to tell her about this.

"Look," Leo finally spoke up, "if you want to call this off, I totally get it. This kind of changes things—"

"No," Annabeth interrupted, her fingers tensing on the remote. She switched off the television and set the remote on the sofa to her right. "No, the only thing this changes is my reasoning. When I got here, this was about stopping Grace—getting him out of our way so we could live in peace. Now, it's…" She took a slow breath. "It's about revenge." Her eyes lifted to the television screen, and on the black surface she imagined for a second she could see Ezekiel Grace's smug, sneering face. A hot flash of anger sparked like a popped fuse inside her. She would make time to grieve for her fiancé, that much was certain. But not until the man responsible for his death was erased.

She realized she'd thrown a little more venom in her voice than she'd intended and shifted to meet Leo's eyes, expecting to see apprehension on his face. But she didn't. He was watching her with a steely expression, and a bit late she remembered that revenge had been his reason for joining their march against Zeke as well. Maybe he understood a little better than she'd presumed.

"That," he said with a short nod, "I can get behind. Zeus has cost us all enough." The corner of his mouth ticked up in a humored smirk. "Past time we make the bastard pay up."

Somehow, despite all she was feeling, Annabeth actually smiled. On a whim, she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Leo. She wasn't really sure why—maybe she just needed a moment of security, to allow herself the smallest hint of the weakness she'd never given into before. Maybe it was residual longing for the man she loved, in the form of a simple desire to feel close to the only person near her. Or maybe it was much more basic than that—maybe she just wanted to thank him for understanding, for being there for her despite their lack of history. Whatever the reason, the contact gave Annabeth an inexplicably stable feeling. She and Leo were in this together—they'd both been wronged by Zeke in the past and had their minds set on retribution. They'd been through a lot in the past day alone, and who knew what else would happen before this was over? He _wasn't_ just a friend of a friend of a friend. Not anymore.

Leo seemed to hesitate a bit before returning the abrupt embrace. His body was surprisingly warm despite the winter chill of the spacious house, like boiling water rushed in the veins beneath his skin. When she pulled away, Annabeth realized that her muscles had relaxed and her breathing had evened out. She glanced up and smiled, glad when he grinned back at her without question.

"Well, if we're gonna do this," he said, leaning back against the arm of the sofa and drawing a leg up onto the cushion beside him, "we're gonna need a plan."

And so they set to work, going over everything they'd learned so far and calmly hashing out every possible course of action they could take. Annabeth was done making rash decisions. For so long, she'd prided herself on her level-headedness, her ability to handle herself well in a crisis. This time _was_ different—she was suffering a major emotional blow that, understandably, would be difficult to ignore, even for a short time. But somewhere under all the changes she'd been through in the past year, that old person was still there—the cool-headed CIA assassin who could overcome any challenge and eliminate any mark (assuming she didn't fall in love with said mark first).

And _that_ was the person whom Ezekiel Grace needed to fear, because _that_ was the person who would stop at nothing to see that burning, electric light disappear from his icy eyes.

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**Well, obviously _we_ know Percy escaped. And fear not, Annabeth will figure that out soon enough. But for now, more drama equals more fun for me so this is how it's gonna go ;)**

**So drop me a review, and this time I promise I'll see you all next Thursday for the (hopefully permanent) return of my regular update schedule!**

**Later days!**

**-oMM**


	12. Midnight

**So I knew I wanted to call this chapter "Midnight" ever since my outline, and when I started writing it, it clicked that it was Chapter 12, and my brain was like "YES! Clever unintended pun for the WIN!" hahaha. I love it when that happens :D**

**Anyway, this chapter's a bit on the short side, more of an intro to the next chapter which is longer and more exciting. Either way it's nice to be back on schedule, right? Well... it is for me, at least. Heh.**

**Thanks to those of you who reviewed last chapter! Enjoy!**

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Who gives a damn if we _lose the war?_

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11:48 PM.

That was the time displayed on the screen of Silena's cell phone (though it wasn't easy to read with the backlight set to absolute minimum). Twelve minutes, give or take, until go-time.

Earlier, Frank and Beckendorf had filled Percy, Silena, and Piper in on the back-story of this operation. About a week ago, some members of Medusa—a relatively small, all-female illegal espionage organization based in New England—had stolen three cases of 45-millimeter nitro-based explosive rounds a team of Hank Beckendorf's specialists had been transporting to Staten Island. Typically, Hank oversaw such deliveries himself. But, according to his son, he'd had his hands so full with special assignments from Zeke that the transport had gone ahead without him and security had been unfortunately lax. Tonight, Medusa was planning to sell the rounds to Cyclops, another east-coast gang that was larger but less connected. Frank, Beckendorf, and Clarisse were aiming to intercept the deal and take back what Medusa had stolen from Olympus.

11:50 PM.

Even fully understanding the situation, Percy was unusually jittery as they waited. He kept elbowing Silena to find out the time, which was clearly starting to annoy her, and more than once Piper had to press her hand against his knee to stop him from tapping his heel on the ground and making a repetitive crunching noise in the snow. They needed to keep quiet. The three of them were crouched behind a cluster of barren, unkempt hedges dotting the spaces between the thick lines of leafless trees overlooking Bank Rock Bay in Central Park. They were a good ways back from the water's edge, with a relatively clear view of Bank Rock Bridge—the location of the deal they were to crash. Frank, Beckendorf, and Clarisse were across the trail, about thirty yards away and hidden from sight.

11:52 PM.

Percy didn't bring it up with Piper and Silena, but he had a distinctly bad feeling about tonight. He couldn't explain the reasoning behind it. It wasn't as though the operation didn't make sense, or as though they hadn't done anything like it before. His friends were prepared, mentally and physically. They had the equipment they'd need and a solid plan of action. They didn't know how many members of Medusa or Cyclops would be present, but with the backup team Zeke was sending them they shouldn't have any issues.

11:53 PM.

Though, that was another potential problem. Zeke had promised Frank some extra manpower, but they were sure taking their time in getting there. Frank's orders were not to spread news of this operation around, just on the off chance that word got outside the organization, so they were trusting Zeke for the backup he'd promised. But what if it arrived too late? Or worse, if it didn't show up at all? Being former heir to Olympus, Percy was familiar with both Cyclops and Medusa. The members of Cyclops dealt mostly in drug trafficking and petty theft. They were known for their strength and ruthlessness, but fortunately not for their skill or organization. If things got touchy, they likely wouldn't pose much threat to trained, high-up members of Olympus like Clarisse and Beckendorf. Medusa, however, was another story. They were much more picky about who they let join. All of their operatives were fast, intelligent, and dangerous. After all, not just anybody could pull off a heist on Hank Beckendorf's team.

11:55 PM.

The Medusa team had arrived. Three lithe-looking women were congregated near the middle of the bridge, all of them dressed in athletic wear and carrying gym bags that Percy assumed hid the stolen merchandise. They looked unassuming, chatting quietly in plain sight. But he had no doubt they were there for a reason. He could see another pair of women in jeans and fluffy coats at the west end of the bridge, and more were likely hidden out of sight. East of the bridge, Percy glanced across the path to where he knew Beckendorf and the others were lying in wait. Adrenaline was starting to speed through his veins, making his skin tingle in the cold air like his jacket had sprouted tiny needles.

11:58 PM.

Movement to Percy's right announced the arrival of the Cyclops team. Moonlight streamed through the barren tree branches above the path and illuminated four stocky men of varying heights walking together, heads drifting from side to side as they surveyed the surrounding area. Though he, Silena, and Piper were yards back from the path, Percy held his breath as they passed, his muscles tensing like water turning to ice. Three more men followed the first, and while the group of four continued onto the bridge the smaller group hovered at its end and turned back toward the forest path as though on guard. Slowly and casually the exchange team approached the women on the bridge, who turned to greet them.

Midnight. It was time—and still no backup from Zeke.

Biting her lip in consternation, Silena started tapping her phone with rapidity. Percy glanced over her shoulder to see her texting a message to Beckendorf—_Contingency plan?_

He leaned back around a tree trunk to get a better look at the bridge. The two teams seemed to be talking cordially. Neither had made any moves toward an exchange yet.

Silena tapped him on the shoulder and turned her phone toward him and Piper, allowing them to read Beckendorf's reply—_Watch for now. If no word after the switch, we jump Cyclops when they pass back._

Percy bit down on his tongue to hold in the retort that sprang immediately up his vocal cord. He gestured to Silena to give him her phone and with a skeptical look she slid it into his hand. He replied to the message, _What about Medusa?_

A few seconds later the response came—_They'll have what they came for. They'll run. Let them go._

Percy scowled and dropped Silena's phone back into her grip. He wasn't convinced that would be the case, but they didn't have a lot of time to discuss it. He tried for an instant to come up with a better plan, until Piper elbowed him in the side and jerked her head toward the bridge. The exchange had begun, but something was wrong. One of the men from Cyclops was knelt on the ground with the three gym bags open in front of him. He looked up and said something to the biggest of his companions, who rounded on the Medusa women with a finger outstretched accusingly. The woman in front held up her hands and shook her head in a placating way, and the man shouted at her in reply, raising his voice enough to be audible from where Percy and the others sat. They couldn't make out what he said, but it was clear he wasn't pleased.

Still, the woman from Medusa held her ground. She waved a hand before placing both on her hips, responding calmly. This only seemed to anger the Cyclops rep more. He shouted again and took a step toward the woman. He reached for her, but by the time his fingers fisted in her jacket another of the women had whipped a handgun from seemingly nowhere and put a silenced bullet between his eyes.

Silena gasped in surprise and immediately threw both hands over her mouth, accidentally smacking the bush in front of her in the process and succeeding in catching the attention of the nearest Cyclops rear guard. To his credit, he didn't waste time observing or asking who was there. He turned directly toward their hiding place and raised a gun at once. Alarmed, Percy tackled Silena sideways as Piper dove the other way, and the _snap_ of breaking branches followed the soft _pew_ of suppressed gunfire. A _snap_ that was entirely too close for comfort. Across the way, he caught a brief glimpse of Beckendorf springing to his feet in the shadows before his attention was drawn to the six-foot, two-hundred-fifty pound interceptor stomping directly toward them.

And that was when all hell broke loose.

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**This is gonna be fun, huh? Don't worry, the next chapter picks up right here—we don't switch back to Annabeth just yet. I couldn't leave it like _that_ now, could I? Hehe.**

**So drop me a review if you please, and I'll see you all again next Thursday! Happy Halloween, and later days!**

**-oMM**


	13. War

**Hey gang! Happy Thursday! Can't believe it's November already... This year has gone WAY too fast. Ugh.**

**So, thanks to those of you who reviewed last week, welcome new followers, all that jazz. We're overdue for some action. Have a nice long chapter, on the house :D**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Let the walls **come down**, let the engines **roar**

* * *

The explosion took everyone by surprise.

Percy was just about to jump to his feet and rush out to meet the man barreling toward him, Silena, and Piper when a loud _bang_ made him and the man both stumble in surprise. There was a flash of orange light to his left and he whipped his head toward the bridge to see that something had blasted a hole in the southern railing, dropping debris into the bay and shattering the thin layer of ice coating the water. One of the Cyclops men was missing—possibly he'd gone over as well. The woman leading the Medusa team was brandishing what looked like a colt revolver, aiming it at the busted section of wall.

_Guess Hank's explosive rounds work,_ Percy thought grimly, before another nearby gunshot pulled his attention back to the forest path. Beckendorf must have fired at the man approaching Percy and the others and missed, because the man ducked and whirled around as Beckendorf, no longer hiding, took aim again.

"Olympus!" Cyclops's other rear guard shouted gruffly as Frank and Clarisse abandoned the shadows as well. This got the attention of the people on the bridge momentarily, but not for long, as a fight had broken out among them at the same time.

Percy climbed to one knee and was braced to jump to his feet when Silena grabbed his shoulder and shoved him backward onto the snow. "No, stay down!" she yelled with a glare, pulling the handgun from her jacket as she stood. "You're dead, remember? Don't be reckless!"

"But—Hey!" Percy stammered back, but she was already running away with Piper on her heels. He growled in frustration and held himself back. He knew she was right. He'd acknowledged it himself earlier—the more people knew he was alive, the harder it would be for him to move around safely. There was always a chance of the information getting back to Zeke, which was the last thing he wanted. So for a moment, he defied every ounce of will in his body and forced himself to stay back from the fight and watch.

As the first Cyclops guy turned his gun on Beckendorf, Silena fired her own to try and throw him off. The bullet grazed his outstretched arm and he dropped his weapon, but he didn't seem altogether deterred. He turned with surprising speed and lunged for Silena. She jerked sideways and avoided being body-slammed, but the man was able to make a grab for her legs and drag her to the ground. She kicked him in the shoulder and scooted backward in the snow as Beckendorf rushed close to help. He tackled the guy from the side and they rolled across the ground, grappling with each other. The thug either wrested Beckendorf's gun from his grip or produced another from somewhere in his clothes, because a suppressed gunshot later Beckendorf yelled sharply and tumbled off of his opponent, a hand latched over his left bicep.

The Cyclops guy sprang to his feet and ducked a wild shot from Silena, instead bowling forward and punching her hard in the side of the head. She stumbled, allowing him to drive his shoulder into her chest and send her crashing backward against a tree trunk. He stood straight, but half a second later Clarisse appeared between the two of them and landed a vicious uppercut on the guy's jaw. He careened backward and Clarisse was on him again without delay.

Behind them, Piper was on her knees (from some attack Percy hadn't seen) and Frank was dodging a heavy swing from the larger of Cyclops's two rear guards. Frank sidestepped and landed a gut-punch on his adversary before the bigger man, doubled over from the hit, hurled himself forward and barreled into Frank, knocking him over and pinning him to the ground.

"_Get the bags!_" Frank yelled hoarsely with an angry growl as he fought to free himself. Piper and Beckendorf both sprang to their feet and sped toward the Bank Rock Bridge as Clarisse traded blows with the other Cyclops guy and Silena tried to stand only to stumble back against the tree behind her with her head in her hands.

"Aw, to hell with _this_," Percy grumbled in irritation. Risk or no risk, he was done sitting on the sidelines. Gritting his teeth, he climbed upright and vaulted over the hedges in front of him, sliding in the snow before dashing after Piper and Beckendorf. He ran onto the bridge and yanked his gun from his belt, taking barely a second to assess the situation—one of the Medusa women had been incapacitated, but the two waiting across the bridge had joined the fray amid their sisters and the two remaining Cyclops men. The one who'd fired the explosive round apparently hadn't tried the same trick again just yet, and was instead trying to get her hands on the gym bags that contained the rest of the ammunition. She dodged around one of the men and almost had a bag before she had to jerk backward to avoid two bullets aimed her way from Piper's weapon.

As Piper sprinted for the bags, Percy backed her up. He fired three shots at the woman approaching her from the left, two of which struck her in the upper torso. She staggered back against the railing, nearly slipping through the gaping hole in the side supports. The woman who'd led the team turned at the disturbance and raised a pistol, but Percy was already too close for her to get a good shot. He used his gun arm to force her outstretched arms downward, causing her to shoot two tiny holes in the wooden flooring of the bridge. He drove his knee into her gut and when she doubled over with a shout he wrapped his free hand in her hair and pulled her upright before whacking her in the ear with his gun. She spun to the side and dropped to the ground.

Percy turned back to see if Piper had gotten her hands on the duffel bags, but his line of sight was immediately blocked by a hulking figure a few inches taller than him and probably twice his weight. A huge fist slammed against the side of his face and for a second all he could see was a painful series of bright, flashing lights. He blinked forcefully to clear his vision and realized that for some reason he was on the ground. He grimaced at the unpleasant, metallic taste on his tongue and spit half a mouthful of blood and the corner of a broken tooth onto the floor, half an instant before something solid and hard hit him in the stomach with so much savage force he slid backward in the snow and again lost all temporary focus on the world around him.

He was vaguely aware of something latching onto his shoulder and shoving him onto his back, and when he ground his teeth and forced himself to regain his senses he looked up into the squinting, unfamiliar face of one of the largest Cyclops reps. The man had a fist raised to strike, but for some reason he hesitated.

"I know you…" the guy muttered, looking as though the vague concentration was taking up an awful lot of his available brain power. "You're Poseidon's kid."

At least eight or ten colorful curse words sprang to Percy's mind and if his mouth didn't still taste like blood he might've uttered a few of them. His head suddenly clearing, he drew both legs up and kicked the guy as hard as he could in the chest, effectively forcing him sideways onto the ground. The man made a wild grab for him but he rolled the other way in evasion. His gun was no longer in his hand (though he couldn't remember exactly when or where he'd lost it), so instead he dove toward the nearest fallen body—a woman from Medusa—and quickly searched her for available weapons. Thankfully, she had a .45 machine pistol in her inner jacket pocket. He yanked it out and released the safety, cocked the chamber, and spun on his knees toward the guy who'd attacked him. The man froze with his arm outstretched and his eyes had barely widened before the bullet hole appeared between them. He fell back onto the snow in a motionless heap.

Shakily Percy got to his feet, but when he tried to take a deep breath, spikes of pain shot through his side and he was forced to bend double as his muscles tensed in protest. He shot a silent, resentful glare at the now-dead guy who'd kicked him in the stomach. Bruised or broken ribs were _not_ _quite_ what he needed at the moment. And that was notwithstanding the potential damage redone to the still-healing stab wound. He'd been taking entirely too many injuries to the abdomen lately.

Nearby, Beckendorf was keeping a woman from Medusa occupied while the other man from Cyclops lay defeated behind them. He was having difficulty keeping up with her, owing to the gunshot wound in his left arm, but his advantage in size and strength seemed to make up for it.

Apparently, the gym bags had been too heavy for Piper to carry all at once, as she had only managed to transport two back to where Clarisse and Silena were now guarding them on land and was heading back for the last one. "NO!" a voice behind Percy shouted, and he turned to see that the woman leading the Medusa team had regained her footing and her revolver—the barrel of which was aimed across the bridge at Piper. Before anyone could react she fired. The explosive round narrowly missed Piper as she staggered sideways in avoidance at the very edge of the bridge. It collided with a tree a few feet behind her and triggered a fiery blast in the middle of the trunk that caused Clarisse and Silena to throw their hands over their heads in surprise. Wood splintered and snapped as the tree toppled over, falling directly toward the bridge. The trunk and leafless branches piled forcefully against the polished wood, collapsing part of the floor and north railing. Piper scrambled out of the way and avoided being crushed by the branches, but the bridge floor beneath her was already breaking apart. In a matter of seconds the entire northeast section of the bridge collapsed, sending broken branches, splintered wood, and Piper through the ice and into the frozen bay.

"Piper!" Percy yelled, his lungs seeming to fill with lead. He started toward the wreckage, not sure what he was going to do, when something suddenly shoved him from the left and he stumbled to the ground. The woman with the revolver rushed past him, speeding toward the collapsed section of the bridge. She snatched the last duffel bag and swung the strap over her shoulder, then turned and started running in the direction from which she and her partners had come.

"Get Piper!" Beckendorf shouted. Crawling to his feet, Percy looked over to see his friend land a right hook to the face of the woman in front of him and dart around her, heading for the woman escaping.

"What are you—?"

"Go!" Beckendorf shot back. "Save her!" He shoved a hand in his jacket pocket as the woman he'd been fighting recovered and chased after him.

Growling in frustrated indecision, Percy realized he didn't exactly have time to consider his options. He spun around, sliding in the thin layer of snow, and charged toward the collapsed tree. He tried to mentally brace himself for what was sure to be the coldest swim he'd ever experienced and took a deep breath, ignoring the now-familiar streak of pain it caused. When he reached the gaping hole in the bridge he vaulted off the edge and dove headfirst into the icy water.

In retrospect, cold might not have been the right word to describe it. The temperature of the bay was so low that it almost felt hot, like he'd just jumped into a vat of lava. It numbed his skin instantly, which was a blessing and a curse—the pain in his side disappeared but it was annoyingly difficult to move his limbs.

Eyes stinging, he quickly scanned the darkness for solid shapes. Distorted rays of moonlight dimly illuminated broken clusters of wood and various other objects. A touch of panic welled inside him until he was suddenly distracted by a dull, thudding _boom_ from somewhere above. Bright, orange light flashed, and he wondered for an instant what the heck that was about before the light showed him what he was sure was the floating shape of a person. Praying that it was Piper and not the body of some random member of Medusa or Cyclops, Percy kicked toward it as frantically as his loose muscles would allow. The glimpse of half-braided brown hair he got when he neared was confirmation enough that he'd found the right mark. He slid an arm around Piper's waist and swam upward with all his strength, biting down on his tongue and allowing the twinge of physical pain to bring back some of his senses.

When they broke the surface and Percy took a gasping breath, he yelled involuntarily at the painful strain in his ribs. Trying and failing to see around the black spots dancing across his field of vision, he dragged Piper toward the nearest bank, more than once having to blindly maneuver around floating debris, and was glad when a pair of hands grabbed firmly onto his and Piper's arms a minute later and pulled them onto dry land.

"You guys okay?" Frank's voice asked as Percy and Piper both collapsed onto the snow, coughing and shaking.

"Y-Yeah," Percy forced out, voice rough and scratchy. He rolled over and sat up, unconsciously hunching his shoulders as he realized how utterly frozen he was. Every inch of his body was trembling uncontrollably.

"You s-saved m-me," Piper stuttered weakly as Frank wrapped his coat around her shaking arms. Percy blinked the last of the stars from his vision and looked over to see her giving him a tiny smile. "Th-Thanks. H-Heck of a s-swimmer, a-aren't you?"

Percy gave a weak chuckle. "H-High school swim t-team," he replied between short, rapid breaths. "Th-Three r-regional championships. N-Never thought it'd come in h-handy in r-real life."

That was when Percy registered a few disconcerting things at once—the grim expression on Frank's face, the distant shouting that became clearer as the roaring in his ears died down, the dull warmth in the air, and the faint smell of smoke. Confused, he glanced around and his jaw practically hit the ground.

"Wh-Where's the b-bridge?" he stammered, staring in shock at Bank Rock Bay, the surface of which was now peppered with broken slivers of wood from the bridge that had crossed over it mere minutes ago. The foundations against the hillsides were still there, but the entire surface had collapsed into the water.

An anguished scream from Percy's left had him whipping around to see Clarisse standing stony-faced with her hands on Silena's arms as the latter tried desperately to pull away from her. Her face was contorted in angst and her eyes were fixed on the wreckage. She screamed again, squeezing her eyes shut, but Clarisse didn't let her go. Silena must have realized her struggle was futile, because finally her arms fell limp and she sank to her knees with a heartbreaking sob, tears streaming down her face. Quietly, Clarisse knelt beside her, one hand on her back and the other grasping her hands.

"No way…" Percy muttered as Piper gave a sharp gasp. His eyes slid back to the bridge as the dreaded realization sunk in—there had been at least three living people on that bridge when he'd jumped into the bay. Now none of them were in sight. The women from Medusa—and Beckendorf—they were all dead.

"Better to destroy the equipment than to let them have it," Frank said leadenly. He was staring at the bay with a hard expression, but his eyes were soft and unfocused. "We knew that—talked about it before. But still…"

"So… H-He did that?" Piper said quietly. "Even… knowing w-what would happen…"

Frank blinked and shook his head. "We should get back to the car. Get you guys warmed up before you freeze to death."

-0-0-0-

The walking helped to bring some feeling back to Percy's legs, but inside he was still numb as ice. And his dip in Bank Rock Bay in the middle of January wasn't the only reason for it. More than anything, he was angry. _Extremely_ angry. He wasn't an idiot—he was more than capable of putting two and two together. He was pretty sure he knew exactly why the night had gone the way it had—and it infuriated him.

He kept quiet until they reached the dark blue SUV they'd arrived in, parked inconspicuously in a public lot midway through the park. Frank unlocked the doors and tossed the two duffel bags they'd recovered into the trunk as Percy climbed into the passenger seat, leaving the three girls to file into the back. Silena was still in tears, though she was considerably less hysterical. Clarisse and Piper sat on either side of her, Clarisse with an arm around her and Piper leaning her head on her sister's shoulder as she pulled Frank's coat more tightly around herself.

Percy leaned his head back and briefly closed his eyes, shivering with cold and wincing at the returning pain in his ribs. He waited until Frank slid into the driver's seat, started the ignition, and turned the heat up to maximum before reopening his eyes and turning to give the driver a sideways glance. He needed to confirm something before he let his anger take over him—though he was pretty sure he knew what the answer would be.

"Who was assigned to this mission?" he asked Frank, dropping his voice so the sound of the blasting air vents would muffle it to the women behind them. "Originally, I mean."

"Just me," Frank replied as they pulled out of the lot and onto the sparsely-occupied road. "Like I said, Zeke didn't want word spread around. Said he'd send a hand-picked backup squad." He snorted ruefully. "See how well _that_ turned out. Anyway, Clarisse and me have been working pretty much side-by-side, so I had to tell her. Beckendorf overheard and wanted in—'cause of his dad's equipment, I think. Far as I know, Zeke didn't hear they'd joined up."

"And you…" Tired, Percy blinked hard and tilted his head, rubbing a crick in his neck. "You only joined the organization after my dad asked you to, right?"

Without inquiring about the topic change, Frank nodded. Percy breathed out slowly, twisting a hand in his wet shirt over his injured ribs and letting the pain clear a bit of the haziness from his mind. Frank's answers didn't surprise him in the slightest—on the contrary, they were exactly what he'd expected. He understood his uncle better than most of the organization did, and after hearing the others' accounts of Ezekiel Grace's recent actions, he felt he knew exactly what had been going through the man's mind in recent months.

"You know what this was, don't you?" he said grimly, trying to keep his anger from poisoning his voice.

Frank's jaw tightened visibly. "Yeah," he admitted in a low tone, staring straight ahead out the windshield. "There was never any backup team, was there? What happened to Beckendorf—that was supposed to be me."

Percy clicked his tongue in distaste. "One less person more loyal to Parker than to Zeke."

Zeke wasn't an admirable person. He never had been. But even still, Olympus _was_ a family—_his_ family. And the way he was treating them… It was wrong. They were criminals, sure. Each and every one of them, Percy himself included. They'd all done things other people would find abhorrent. But beneath all that, they had a bond—or at least, he'd thought they did. To Zeke, the organization was changing. He had it in his head that they weren't a team—that they weren't on the same side, that people were beginning to turn against him. And now, he was taking it upon himself to right those imagined wrongs.

'Honor among thieves', as Clarisse had said—it didn't exist anymore.

"He's gonna start a war," Percy said, his voice quiet with resolution. It wasn't a warning—it was an observation. "That's why he's telling everybody I'm dead. Just killing me wasn't enough—he wanted my dad to _know_. Thinks he can bait him into striking first. But in case that doesn't work, he's gonna have a Plan B."

"The work he's got Hank doing," Frank agreed. "The extra artillery—he's planning an attack."

"Annabeth told me once… She was taught in CIA training that Poseidon was the biggest threat in Olympus. The hub of business and trade—it's here, in New York. Looks like leader in name isn't enough for Zeke. He wants it all, and he's willing to start a civil war to get it." Percy closed his eyes again—the frozen tips of his hair were starting to thaw, dripping water down his face. He was too exhausted to lift an arm and wipe it away. "I've got to stop him."

"After you get medical help."

With a frown, Percy opened his eyes and caught Frank shooting him a sideways glance of apprehension before returning his gaze to the windshield. "No—waste of time," he insisted, though even he could tell that the obvious strain in his voice did a pretty good job of rendering any argument null and void. "I'm okay."

"You're _not_," Frank said firmly with an air of finality, his voice rising a lilt in volume. Percy fell silent, feeling oddly chagrined. Frank's eyes shot sideways, gaze swiveling below Percy's line of vision. "Ribs, right?" he went on, tone softening. "I saw that guy kick you. Seriously, I don't know how you managed that stunt in the bay. You shouldn't have been able to stand, let alone swim."

Relaxing a bit, Percy chuckled wryly—then regretted it immediately when thin tendrils of pain snaked like lightning bolts up his right side. "I'm… good with water."

"Right," Frank said with a smirk. "Poseidon's son, and all."

"Ha, ha," Percy replied sarcastically, though he grunted a laugh all the same. The jibe reminded him with a nostalgic pang of his time on his high school swim team, and all the similar jokes Thalia had made at his expense back then.

"But you're right," Frank said with a short sigh. "Soon as you're good—we stop Zeke. Whatever it takes."

Percy raised an eyebrow. "'We', huh?"

The corner of Frank's mouth lifted in a small smile. "Yeah. We. Zeke's right—I _am_ more loyal to your dad than to him. And I'm gonna prove it."

"I'm in, too," Clarisse said gruffly from the backseat, telling them she (and probably the others) had been listening after all. "I'm all for a little fighting, but a civil war? Not a chance."

"And we're not backing down, either," Silena spoke up. Her voice was dry and scratchy from crying, but her crimson-tinted eyes were serious and shadowy. "If it wasn't for that—for him, then Charlie…" She took a shaky breath and Piper, who was no longer shivering despite her still-damp clothes, tightened her grip on her sister's knee.

Silena shook her head and looked up at Percy, who had twisted around in his seat to face the back. Her eyebrows knitted and she shrugged off her coat, then her sweater. She gathered the sweater in her hands and scooted forward on her seat, tilting her head to the side with a short sigh begetting obvious exasperation that somehow helped to lessen the heavy atmosphere inside the SUV.

"You know, I'm thinking 'reckless' isn't a strong enough word to describe you anymore," she said with a touch of wry humor as she used her sweater to squeeze the loose water from Percy's hair and brush the thin streams of it from his face. He gave her an apologetic smile in response. Breathing out through her nose, she dropped her arms in her lap and said quietly, "We're not letting you do this alone. We're going to stop Zeke—all of us. For Charlie… and for you."

Percy looked around at the four of them and couldn't help a weak grin. He'd known Silena and Clarisse forever, so their determination didn't come as much surprise, even despite the rocky history between him and Clarisse. But with Piper and Frank, it was different. Strangely, even though he hadn't known them for long, he felt the same familial connection with them as he did with Silena and Clarisse. The way they looked at him and promised to help—it was as though they'd been friends for years.

This time, Percy was sure—every one of these people knew exactly what they were getting into. What had happened that night left no room for doubt or debate. Ezekiel Grace was becoming a danger to the organization—to their family. They all were just as personally involved now as he was, and they would see this thing through together—as Frank had said, whatever it took.

Percy hated nothing as much as seeing his family threatened. And now, finally, it was time to get his fiancée back and do something about it.

* * *

**Almost time to get the band together ;) Drop a review on your way out, and I'll see you guys next Thursday!**

**Later days!**

**-oMM**


	14. Blend

**Hey everybody! Happy Thursday! I don't think I have any notes today... So, thanks to those of you who reviewed last chapter, and enjoy this week's installment!**

* * *

We can leave _this world_, leave it **all behind** / We can _steal_ this car if your folks **don't mind  
**We can live **forever** / If you've got the _time_

* * *

For the first time in a long time, Annabeth felt perfectly in her element.

It should have been strange how easily she slipped back into the CIA mindset. She'd gotten used to life in London, after all—a slow, uneventful, _normal_ life. She loved it, while it had lasted, and would have been content to stay there and live out her days.

But apparently, part of her never completely let go of her past, because she was calmer and more collected than ever as she observed the general traffic in and out of the Willis Tower the day after her meeting with Ezekiel Grace. Suddenly it was like the last year and a half hadn't happened—like she was still employed by the CIA, doing reconnaissance on a target before making her move. And somehow, it just felt right.

She sat lazily in one of the cushy chairs that dotted the Willis Tower lobby, slowly flicking through a magazine without reading the pages. She was dressed casually and inconspicuously—blue jeans, Airwalk boots, a light blue scoop-neck T-shirt, and a gray fleece. Her coat and scarf were draped over the back of her chair, and her blond curls were tied back and stuffed under a white, knitted snow cap. Her face was angled toward her magazine, but her eyes lifted to study her surroundings over the silver wire frames of the reading glasses she'd borrowed from Hylla.

The lobby was littered with what Annabeth assumed were the usual clientele—mostly tourists paying a visit to the landmark, discussing the sights, or inquiring about the Skydeck. Occasionally people in suits or business casual wear would push their way through the revolving doors and head straight for the elevators, waving keycards by the scanners to access the business floors. The employees at the reception desk greeted anyone who approached them with a polite smile and kind tone, handing out brochures and information packets or giving directions and recommendations.

Annabeth was watching for anything out of the ordinary. So far, she hadn't seen much—different people she had a good feeling worked for Zeke were probably the most notable. But she wasn't too concerned. This was a secondary objective, something to do to kill time while she waited for Leo.

He and Reyna had noticed the previous day that the building was having some kind of internal renovation done, so this morning he'd gone in disguised as an electrical engineer in order to get any information he could on the Tower in general, and possibly on Zeke and his schedule. It was a low-risk plan, given that Leo hadn't been seen on site during the debacle yesterday and was very unlikely to be recognized by anyone affiliated with Olympus with whom he might cross paths. But still, Annabeth insisted she remain on the scene as well—just in case something unexpected happened.

Despite how comfortable she was doing recon, it still took a considerable amount of brainpower to keep her emotions in check when Annabeth thought of the criminal currently working 78 floors above her—the criminal responsible for the ruthless murder of the man she loved. Behind her stoic walls of neutral impassiveness, an insistent voice kept screaming in outrage and heartbreak. As childish as it sounded, it just _wasn't fair_. She wanted to tear around the lobby, smashing ornamental light fixtures and knocking over pamphlet-laden tables. She wanted to take an elevator to the 79th floor and shove Zeke's nameplate down his throat. She wanted to watch him burn, see the pain and the fury on his face when he realized that this time, his actions would have consequences—this time, he wasn't going to get what he wanted.

But despite the strength of these reckless desires, Annabeth knew she had to wait. This mission was delicate. She and Thalia had both lost their heads when they'd confronted Zeke the previous afternoon, and they'd been rewarded with disaster. Surely he would expect them to try again, but this time they were going to do it right.

That was what kept Annabeth from flying off the handle—the knowledge that doing so would not only sabotage her attempt at retribution on Zeke, but also more than likely get her (and possibly also Leo) needlessly killed. Anger or no, she _knew_ Percy wouldn't want that. For his sake—his memory—she _had_ to make it out of this alive, whatever became of his uncle. She sincerely hoped it wouldn't come down to a choice between failure and sacrifice, because at the moment, affected by resentment and grief as she was, she didn't know if that was a choice she'd be able to make. All she could do was trust her training—believe that when the time came, she would know what to do and have the power and the resolve to do it.

Annabeth turned the page of her magazine and breathed out shortly, frowning in mild frustration. She shouldn't be thinking about these things, not now. Her goal for the time being was to appear relaxed, to blend in as her senses prowled for any information that provided potential assistance to their main objective. She adjusted her glasses on the bridge of her nose and re-crossed her legs, her foot twitching rhythmically in midair as she took a deep breath and forcibly calmed her nerves. This was _just another job_. She'd done it dozens of times before. There was nothing to get worked up about.

She glanced at the clock on the wall. It was almost 4:00 PM; Leo had been gone for hours, which hopefully was a good thing. She had no idea when he'd be back, though admittedly for his cover to be convincing he couldn't just stop by for a few minutes and jet. Either way, she hoped he'd gotten something useful out of the venture. They needed a starting line, after all.

As Annabeth lowered her gaze and did another sweep of the lobby, something at the reception desk sparked her interest. A young woman with sleek, dark hair was leaning on the desk, chatting with the same guard who'd given Annabeth and Thalia visitor passes a day ago. She watched as the employee shook his head with what looked like an apologetic frown and extended a hand toward the front door. The woman, whose back was to Annabeth, must have said something, because after a pause the man shook his head more insistently and gave a less-than-sincere smile. The woman stood up straight and turned away from him in defeat, and Annabeth felt an odd tug at her memory upon seeing her face. She squinted across the lobby, wracking her brain to try and remember where she could have encountered her before.

The woman was maybe a year or two older than Annabeth, with long, nearly-black hair in perfect, soft waves and a flawless, creamy complexion. She was dressed simply, not unlike Annabeth was, but was effortlessly attractive, drawing numerous brief looks from the men who passed her. She scowled and muttered something to herself as she stepped away from the welcome desk and rummaged in her bag, producing a cell phone. As she tapped the screen and pressed the phone to her ear, she rolled her eyes—bright, striking blue eyes, eyes like polished sapphires. Eyes Annabeth remembered_._

She clamped her mouth shut to keep from shouting in realization. It was Silena Beauregard—former coworker of Percy's and long-time member of Olympus.

Immediately Annabeth shifted in her chair so as to better conceal her face behind her magazine. She didn't know if Silena would remember her, but she didn't want to run the risk of Olympus finding out she was there. For all she knew, Silena would report her presence to Zeke.

"Lookin' a little suspicious there," a low, amused voice said over Annabeth's left shoulder. She jumped in alarm and twisted around, but it was only Leo, grinning at her with his eyebrows raised.

Annabeth realized she'd been hiding a little too obviously behind her magazine. "Shut up," she grumbled, using the periodical to smack Leo on the arm. She stood up, deliberately turning her back to Silena Beauregard. "How'd it go?"

"Pretty well." Leo shifted the white hardhat under his arm and mussed his curly hair with the hand not carrying a heavy-looking equipment case. "The other workers were extremely talkative."

"Good to hear," Annabeth said with a satisfied smile. She shot a glance over her shoulder to see Silena talking agitatedly into her phone, looking frustrated. "Let's go talk somewhere else. Don't want to be overheard."

When Leo shrugged in agreement, Annabeth turned to retrieve her coat and scarf before leading the way toward the nearest revolving door. She was almost there when a voice behind her distinctly exclaimed, "No _way!_" and the next thing she knew someone had snatched her by the shoulder and wrapped her in an inescapable, one-armed hug.

"Annabeth!" the person said breathily, backing up to reveal the winning smile of Silena Beauregard. "Oh, thank God, I was worried we'd never find you! What?" she said into her phone, as though just remembering she was in the middle of a conversation. "Yes, she's here! She's fine, calm down! Look, I'll bring her over, okay? Just _stay put_. You need to keep out of sight for now." She rolled her eyes again. "No, don't give me that. _Stay_. I mean it. 'Bye." She abruptly hung up the phone and stuffed it in her bag, once again flashing Annabeth a bright grin. "Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to freak you out. It's me, Silena. You remember, right? We met in New York a year and a half ago."

Still stunned from the sudden and apparently unavoidable encounter, Annabeth had a difficult time making her mouth form words. "Y… Yeah, I remember. It's just… Well, I kind of have to be somewhere—"

"No, no, no, you have to come with me!" Silena interrupted at once, talking excitedly. Dropping her voice, she leaned closer and added, "Don't worry, we're here for the same reason you are. We want to work together."

Annabeth blinked. "We?"

"Yeah, of course. Our team wants to help you, I promise. All of us."

"Somebody wanna tell me what the heck's going on here?" Leo cut in, stepping around Annabeth and pointing a finger between her and Silena.

Silena frowned at Annabeth. "Is he with you?"

Annabeth nodded numbly, still trying to mentally replay everything Silena had said since ambushing her. Whoever she'd been talking to on the phone seemed to know Annabeth—and more than that, had seemed worried about her. She tried desperately not to let her hopes inflate too high—there had to be some other link between her and Silena that she wasn't immediately aware of. But at the same time… who else could it be?

"Alright, then." Silena shrugged, taking Annabeth's wordless answer and giving Leo a welcoming smile. "Both of you, come with me. We've got _a lot_ to talk about."

* * *

**The next chapter's a good bit longer than this one. I'll have it up next Thursday :D I counted out the weeks yesterday and realized that if I keep up the once-a-week thing the last chapter will be on Christmas, which made me really excited. Haha XD**

**So how 'bout a review on your way out? Thanks as always, everybody! Later days!**

**-oMM**


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